Oral Answers to Questions

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

The Secretary of State was asked—

Bangladesh

Sally Keeble: What representations he has made to the Government of Bangladesh about their domestic security.

Douglas Alexander: May I begin by extending the sympathy of all Members to the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), who I understand is absent from the Chamber this morning as a result of the passing of his father?
	We regularly raise concerns about the situation in Bangladesh, including the recent political violence, with the Bangladeshi authorities. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary wrote to the Bangladeshi Prime Minister following the attack in August at an opposition rally. Sir Michael Jay, permanent under-secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, pressed the Bangladeshi Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition in Dhaka on 5 October to work to resolve the problems facing Bangladesh. I hope to visit Bangladesh myself in the near future.

Sally Keeble: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer, and I join him in offering condolences to the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram). Is my hon. Friend aware of the recent spate of arrests of opposition members—some reports put the figure as high as 40,000—which come on top of the bombings that have accounted for some 1,400 deaths in the past three years? Will he look at getting support from the rest of the international community so that we can bring urgent pressure to bear on Bangladesh, in order to improve the security situation and the fragile democracy in that country?

Douglas Alexander: May I first place on the record my gratitude to my hon. Friend for her work on this issue, which is of great concern to her. Like her, we are concerned at the deterioration of law and order in Bangladesh, and we are keen to work with the Bangladeshi police to help them to improve their performance. The Department for International Development is providing £5 million for a United Nations police reform project, in order to focus on investigation techniques and prosecution. We are keen to encourage that aspect of such work.

Simon Hughes: When the Minister goes to Bangladesh, will he add to his list of issues on which to make representations the security of minority faith communities in Bangladesh—his colleagues are aware of this issue—who are under increasing pressure and subject to harassment? In particular, I draw his attention to the allegation of increasing evidence of fundamentalists from outside Bangladesh infiltrating Government and security services to the detriment of the civil rights of all the community, in what is meant to be a secular state.

Douglas Alexander: The hon. Gentleman raises two important issues: the treatment of minorities and the threat of external involvement in the challenges facing Bangladesh. I certainly undertake to make those points, which have been made previously, when I visit Bangladesh.

Oona King: Half of all British Bangladeshis live in Tower Hamlets, and I reiterate to the Minister how deeply distressed they are by the current political situation in Bangladesh and the floods that have devastated it. Having just returned from that country, I commend the outstanding work of our British high commissioner, Anwar Choudhury, his team and the DFID team. What further pressure will be put on the Bangladeshi Government to investigate properly the attacks on Anwar Choudhury and on the opposition leaders? When the Minister is in Bangladesh, could he also ensure that the experience of my constituent, Nunu Miah, is not suffered by other British Bangladeshis travelling to that country?

Douglas Alexander: My hon. Friend raises a number of points. I know of her strong commitment to, and concern for, her Bangladeshi constituents; indeed, my first meeting with a Member of this House after taking up my new responsibilities was with her. She impressed on me then, before her visit to Bangladesh, the importance that she attaches to these issues. On the 21 August attack, I understand that a one-man judicial committee has reported to the Bangladeshi Government, but that the report has not been made public. On the attack on high commissioner Anwar Choudhury, I am glad to say that he recovered well and returned to his duties in July. Although there have been no arrests as yet in relation to that attack, the Bangladeshi police investigation continues. We have stressed to the authorities—I intend to do so again when I visit Bangladesh—that we are keen that the importance of the investigation be elevated, so that those responsible for perpetrating such violence are brought to justice.

Sydney Chapman: The Minister will know that the attack on the peaceful rally on 21 August involved the killing of 24 people and the injuring of hundreds of others. That rally was protesting against a previous series of bomb attacks, including one on our high commissioner. I appreciate the efforts that the Government have made, as outlined by the Minister; nevertheless, will he see that the matter is pressed resolutely? What is going on in that country is just not acceptable, and if necessary the United Nations should be brought in at the earliest opportunity.

Douglas Alexander: I certainly agree that we were all shocked by the attacks on an opposition rally on 21 August. We utterly condemn such attacks, which have no place in a free and democratic society. We certainly welcome the swift condemnation of those attacks by the Bangladeshi Government, but we are determined to ensure that we continue to press the case that a full investigation takes place. I give a further undertaking that I will make that point when I visit Bangladesh in due course.

Global Warming

Desmond Turner: What representations the Government have made to the United States Administration to encourage it to engage with international efforts to combat global warming.

Jack Straw: I echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Minister for Trade and Investment in expressing my condolences to the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) on the loss of his father.
	The Government are working hard to re-engage the United States on the urgency of tackling climate change, despite our differences over Kyoto. We are making every effort to convince US policymakers at all levels that the right environmental policy, as set out in Kyoto, is also good for business. I made a major speech on the UK's position at Howard university, Washington DC, in May this year. Taking effective international action on climate change is a major priority for our G8 and EU presidencies next year.

Desmond Turner: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. I am sure that he would agree that the evidence is now abundant that the process of climate change is accelerating, making the need for action extremely urgent. In the face of the evidence, it is still clear that the United States Administration is in total denial—almost of the science and certainly of the need to take action, which places the future of the entire globe in grave jeopardy. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the time has come to stop playing patsy with the States, and that we need to go in fairly tough on the matter? We need to get together with the rest of the international community to ensure that the US, which produces 25 per cent. of all carbon dioxide emissions and probably an equal share of the other important greenhouse gases, comes together with everyone else. Even Russia has signed Kyoto, yet the US is still standing out and must be brought into line.

Jack Straw: If my hon. Friend reads the speech that I made at Howard university in Washington in May—I will send him a copy—he will see that, far from taking a patsy line on this issue, I took a very robust line. There is a major disagreement between the United Kingdom and the United States on this issue. Our aim is to persuade US policymakers to change their approach.
	There are some encouraging signs. The first is that the National Academy of Sciences in the United States now agrees about the scientific evidence. The second is a developing and all-party alliance in favour of Kyoto. The states of California and New York, which between them account for 50 per cent. more carbon dioxide emissions than the UK, have now adopted measures close to those recommended under Kyoto. The McCain-Lieberman Bill, which would introduce a similar structure of controls to those of Kyoto, received 43 votes when it recently came up for debate in the Senate. We have to maintain our pressure on the United States by presenting the scientific evidence, because its people will be as much at risk as those in the rest of the world if there is not international action on climate change, including by the United States.

Jonathan Sayeed: As the Foreign Secretary has not had much success in persuading the current President of the United States of the science behind climate change and global warming, does he believe that the Democratic challenger will be rather more amenable to understanding the problem?

Jack Straw: From what I read, both challengers for the presidency take a similar position on this issue. As ever in the United States—it is a federal state whose democracy is very widely spread—the headline that it is against Kyoto, which is true, tends to obscure the fact that there is a raging debate taking place in the country and increasing support for the UK's position. I am glad to say that we have now been joined by Russia, which means that the Kyoto protocol can now come into force.

Joan Ruddock: I recently returned from leading a delegation to Russia, where this matter was discussed. May I tell my right hon. Friend that the Kyoto ratification proposed by President Putin is hugely controversial in the Duma; its members believe that it will jeopardise Russia's rapid economic growth? Will my right hon. Friend ensure that hard promises to Russia of technical assistance and co-operation are made and kept, so that the Kyoto protocol will come into effect and the United States will no longer have the excuse that it is not a reality, as it will be a reality if Russia ratifies?

Jack Straw: Yes, we will. When I was in Russia in July, I spelled out to my Russian colleague, Sergei Lavrov, and to the other members of the Government and Duma whom I met, that Russia has more to gain than to lose from Kyoto. I also drew their attention to the fact that hard-headed multinational American companies such as DuPont are now taking a lead on this matter and are working as though Kyoto were in force. The tide is therefore moving; we have to ensure that the build-up continues so that Kyoto is implemented fully, and then persuade the US federal Government to come in behind it.

Richard Ottaway: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that he will be in no position to take a robust line with the US Administration if we do not get our own house in order? Is he aware that CO 2 emissions in this country have risen since 1997?

Jack Straw: With respect, I must tell the hon. Gentleman that our record on emissions is good, and I shall be happy to write to him with the details.

Turkey

Bob Russell: What recent representations he has made to the Turkish Government on the equal rights of Turkish citizens from ethnic minorities.

Denis MacShane: We have consistently raised, at the highest levels, the need for Turkey to ensure that the democratic rights of all its citizens are protected, regardless of their ethnicity. The Lord Chancellor and I raised this with the Turkish Justice Minister during his visit to the UK in July. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary also urged the Turkish Government to sustain the momentum of reform during his visit on 7 October.

Bob Russell: Does the Minister agree that Turkey has no place in the EU if it does not give equal rights to its Kurdish minority?

Denis MacShane: The fact that Turkey is an enthusiastic supporter of EU entry—which sets it apart from one or two political forces in our country—has caused it to improve considerably its laws in respect of the Kurdish minority. For example, new laws allow Kurdish people to study, broadcast and register their own names. The situation for Kurds in Turkey is improving steadily, as Turkey seeks to join the EU.

Keith Vaz: I welcome the decisions taken in Brussels last Thursday, and the statement by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in Ankara on Friday that the EU must keep its side of the bargain. However, does the Minister share my concern about the forces of reaction in Europe, which try to assert that Turkey will not join the EU until 2019? Will he confirm that there is no question that a referendum on Turkish membership of the EU will be held? Will he also confirm that the UK will give Turkey every assistance possible to ensure that it meets the terms of the Copenhagen criteria, and any other assistance necessary to allow Turkey to join the EU as soon as possible?

Denis MacShane: The answer to all those questions is an unequivocal yes. It would be helpful if Britain could be united in supporting the Turkish application for EU membership, and even more helpful if the Conservative party and other parties on the centre-right in the rest of Europe also supported that application. However, while the Turks want in, the Tories want out. The Opposition have no locus in Europe, and no presence or status with their sister parties. I urge Opposition Members to stop their lurch to the right and to give up camping after UKIP votes. They should support the national interests of Britain and Turkey and ensure that both countries work for a successful EU and a successful Turkey in the EU.

Stephen Dorrell: Does the Minister agree that consideration of Turkish membership of the EU is an important negotiating tool when it comes to improving civil rights in Turkey? However, does he also agree that it is essential that that does not become an excuse for delaying consideration of Turkish membership, artificially and unnecessarily?

Denis MacShane: Yes.

Nick Palmer: Does my hon. Friend agree that this case offers an example of how the EU leads the promotion of human rights? The Turkish Government are adopting more progressive measures in respect of their Kurdish minority in part because they want to join the EU. That is one of Europe's missions that should be continued as more member states join, and it is a very welcome aspect of the EU.

Denis MacShane: I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The EU exports its values—its democracy, its open market and its liberal traditions—osmotically, as it were, and during the adult lifetime of everybody in this Chamber we have seen considerable advances in many European countries, which were in a very different situation not so long ago. It is all the more sad that we hear relentless anti-European propaganda and see the move to the right by the Opposition. We also hear constant talk of breaching solemn treaty obligations on fisheries and social policy—

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Angus Robertson: I welcome the decision on Turkey and I also agree with the comments made so far about Kurds. I would also highlight the situation of Armenians in Turkey and of Armenia itself. Will the Minister encourage Turkey to improve Armenian relations, including making progress on resolving outstanding historical differences?

Denis MacShane: I am a Foreign Office Minister, not an historian, and there are times when history should be left to history. Turkey wants to look to a better future in the European Union and that will require it—as it requires of all member states—to look with tolerance and sensitivity at some of the problems of the past. Sometimes the past is best dealt with by ceasing to rake it up incessantly.

Jon Owen Jones: The Minister is correct to say that human rights in Turkey have improved, but when he says—as he just did—that it is now possible to register one's name and to broadcast in one's own language in some circumstances, it illustrates how far Turkey has to go before it can be genuinely a part of the European Union.

Denis MacShane: I accept what my hon. Friend says, although such developments also illustrate how far Turkey has come. It seems like only yesterday that I was listening to complaints about the treatment of Kurds, which we all agreed was unacceptable. Now Turkey has made substantial legislative reforms, with implementation right down through the police and other systems. The very act of preparing for engagement with the EU is a powerful pressure on all Turkish society and its political leadership to conform to the values of Europe. That is why anti-Europeanism has no place if we want to help Turkey over the next few years.

Graham Brady: I thank the Foreign Secretary and his colleagues for their kind words for my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram).
	The Government have rightly supported the accession of Turkey to the EU, and we welcome that. The Minister has said that Turkey must continue to implement improvements in human rights for all its citizens. Is it also the Minister's view that Turkish accession to the EU should give Turkish citizens, of all ethnic groups, the immediate right to free movement within the EU and the UK—or will the Government seek a derogation with regard to Turkey, just as France, Germany and others did for the countries of eastern Europe that joined the EU this year?

Denis MacShane: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new post as shadow Minister for Europe. I look forward to as positive and friendly a relationship as I had with his predecessor. When Turkey finally joins the EU—which, frankly speaking, will take some years of negotiation—we expect that it will have the same rights as other countries. I regret and deplore the campaign in the winter against Poles, Hungarians and Czechs led by the Opposition and the isolationist right-wing press. I hope that when Turkey finally does enter the EU, the Opposition will have changed their spots and will support our partners in Europe, instead of campaigning against their being allowed to work in the UK.

Uganda

Laurence Robertson: What recent discussions he has had with the Government of Uganda on the security situation in that country.

Chris Mullin: I discussed the security situation in northern Uganda with President Museveni and senior members of his Government during my visit in August. I also visited camps for people displaced by the activities of the Lord's Resistance Army in the north of the country.

Laurence Robertson: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Given the coverage that events in Iraq and Sudan attract, does he agree that the ongoing war in the north of Uganda is the forgotten war? Does he acknowledge—I am sure that he does—how many children have been taken into the LRA? That is bad enough in itself, but the way in which those children are used causes the spread of AIDS. The health service in northern Uganda is collapsing, many people are dying of AIDS and the Government are struggling to cope. Does the Minister agree that the best—albeit difficult—way forward is to hold multi-party elections as soon as possible?

Chris Mullin: The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the dire situation in northern Uganda. There has, I am glad to say, been some progress in recent months, because Sudan, where the LRA previously sheltered, is no longer giving it shelter and has given the Ugandan army licence to operate in the south of the country. As a result, there has been quite a large number of defections—if that is the right word—among people in the LRA, including one or two senior leaders, although I would not want to overstate the position. The LRA remains a serious threat and it is a truly evil organisation. The difficulty in dealing with it is that it has no ideological agenda with which one can engage, but our view is that there is no purely military situation. A combination of amnesty, dialogue and military action is probably the way forward, and I am glad to say that that is making progress.
	On the question of multi-party elections, the Ugandan Parliament and people are shortly to take a decision on a move to a multi-party system, and we welcome that.

Bob Blizzard: Have the atrocious activities of the Lord's Resistance Army not gone on for far too long—about 18 years, I believe? The LRA seems to have no popular support, but nor do the people of northern Uganda trust or welcome the intervention of Government troops, so is there not a case for some international intervention or for a third-party force of some kind to put an end to the atrocities in northern Uganda and give that part of the country the security that it deserves?

Chris Mullin: There has been no request from the Ugandans for outside intervention, although the international community, particularly the donor community, in which we play a leading part, engages closely with the Ugandan Government on that issue. We have been arguing that there is no military solution; as my hon. Friend says, the situation has been going on for 18 years and military activity must be combined with an amnesty and some form of dialogue, although, as I mentioned, such dialogue is rather difficult. By and large, however, that is happening and it is beginning to produce some results, so the situation is not entirely bleak. However, my hon. Friend is right to say that there is a much wider issue that will have to be addressed in due course—in fact, the sooner, the better: the marginalisation of the Acholi and Langi peoples.

Mark Simmonds: Further to the Minister's answers to the previous two questions, it is clear that the LRA—the rebel activity in northern Uganda—has been barbaric and inhumane. I hope that the whole House will join me in condemning those atrocities, especially the appalling atrocities against children. Given recent evidence of support for the LRA from the Sudanese Government, what are the British Government doing to ensure that Sudanese resistance is eradicated and that it is not resumed in any volume? What pressure can the Government put on the international community to ensure a solution to the problem, so that that part of Africa is not forgotten while attention is focused on the nearby Darfur region?

Chris Mullin: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, whom I welcome to his place, there is no such thing as Sudanese resistance. In the past—we think that it stopped about two years ago—the Sudanese were supporting the Lord's Resistance Army; they have given it shelter in southern Sudan and supplied it with arms and food. As far as we can tell, that has stopped. We have continued to talk to the Sudanese about the matter and they have given us clear undertakings on that point—I was in Sudan last month. They have also allowed the Ugandan army to operate in the south of Sudan, which has had an enormous impact on the LRA's ability to function. Considerable progress has been made recently. It is not a forgotten war, but hon. Members are right to draw attention to it, as the situation is dire and serious. About 1.6 million people have been displaced, but there is scope for mild optimism—I put it no higher than that—about the way in which events have moved. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) a moment ago, there will be a long repair job to be done afterwards to deal with the wider issue of the marginalisation of the Acholi and Langi peoples.

Diego Garcia

Laura Moffatt: What advice is given to the people of Diego Garcia currently living in Mauritius and the Seychelles who choose to take up their British passports and live in the UK.

Jack Straw: When passports are issued to Chagossians in Mauritius and the Seychelles, our high commissions there provide written advice on what they can expect when they arrive in the UK. It makes it clear that able-bodied Chagossians without care needs cannot expect to receive automatic support when they arrive in the UK and should ensure before travelling that they have the means to support themselves. That is the same for any other United Kingdom citizen without habitual residence in the UK.

Laura Moffatt: I thank my right hon. Friend for that response. He will know that both inside and outside the House there is considerable concern about the plight of the Chagos islanders who moved to Mauritius. For me, the issue has been around people who may have been exploited entering the UK. Immediately on their arrival, a judgment in the High Court is sought on whether they should be given assistance through the local authority. That has caused enormous difficulty. May I ask my right hon. Friend to make sure that all Departments involved in what can be a difficult and painful issue work together to seek a solution?

Jack Straw: I give my hon. Friend that undertaking. It is a difficult issue. I understand that the High Court's judgment against the county council is the subject of an appeal right now. We do our best to work closely together. I will make sure that we are doing that as well as we can. I repeat that the rules in respect of United Kingdom citizens arriving from Mauritius and the Seychelles are exactly the same as those for any other United Kingdom citizens who do not have habitual residence in the UK. There is no discrimination. Although I understand some of the difficulties that the Chagossians have encountered in Mauritius and the Seychelles, it is also fair to say that we have provided a large amount of compensation to those families.

David Chidgey: What efforts have the Government made to ensure that compensation paid to these displaced persons through the Mauritian and Seychellian Governments has reached the people who expected to benefit from them?

Jack Straw: My understanding is that the British Government have made two payments of compensation in relation to the resettlement of the Chagos islanders. Those payments in today's terms total more than £14 million. I have had no representations to the effect that the intended beneficiaries have not received the money. I am happy to follow up the matter if the hon. Gentleman writes to me.

John Grogan: Given last week's excellent ITV programme, which chronicled the appalling treatment that the Chagos islanders have received from successive British Governments and the fact that many of them signed away their rights to compensation without realising what they were signing, is there not a strong and clear moral case for the British Government to look again at making further compensation payments to some of the islanders who are living in the most appalling poverty?

Jack Straw: I understand how controversial has been the history of the moves made many decades ago to remove the Chagossians from their natural territory to Mauritius and the Seychelles, but this Government and, I think it fair to say, our immediate predecessors have not acted in an appalling way. We have acted to the best of our ability and large amounts of compensation, given the relatively small numbers involved, have been paid.

Maghreb Countries

Gordon Marsden: What plans his Department has to increase its engagement with Maghreb countries during the UK's EU presidency in 2005.

Denis MacShane: We plan to work closely with the Maghreb countries in advance of our EU presidency in the second half of next year. During our presidency, we will organise a high-level event to mark the 10th anniversary of the Barcelona process—that is EU jargon for the EU's engagement with the Mediterranean countries. The conference with the Maghreb countries, which my hon. Friend chaired in June, is an excellent example of how Members of Parliament, on behalf of all Members of the House, can increase our engagement in the region.

Gordon Marsden: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Foreign Ministers and ambassadors from the Maghreb countries who participated in that conference were delighted at the commitment that the Foreign Secretary and Baroness Symons showed to the meeting. I am delighted to hear that the momentum will continue with the conference next year on the Barcelona process. I offer two suggestions to my hon. Friend. The first is that, as part of that process, we do our utmost to encourage dialogue and engagement between the Maghreb countries and the newly acceded EU countries. They would be valuable allies for the Maghreb countries. The second is that, in preparation for the conference, we concentrate on building up the economic and financial infrastructure of the Maghreb countries, because that is close to our national interest in terms of encouraging trade with this country and reducing pressures on migration and potential recruitment to terrorist organisations.

Denis MacShane: I agree very much with those points. Britain does not want poor neighbours; the European Union wants richer neighbours, growing in wealth and job creation in their own countries, to lessen some of the pressures of economic migrant flows. Indeed, I will have talks with Spanish opposite numbers in a couple of weeks on how, together with Spain, we can engage more positively with the Maghreb countries ahead of the UK's EU presidency next year.

Anne McIntosh: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, whichever party is in power, the real thrust of the UK presidency should be to improve literacy, to reduce poverty in the Maghreb countries and to look at serious security and human rights issues, as well as the situation of women in those countries?

Denis MacShane: Those are important, valid points. On human rights, there are problems to do with journalists imprisoned in Tunisia. Algeria, of course, has had to deal with some pretty bad Islamic fundamentalist politics and a lot of violence. In Morocco, where the situation is easier, there still remain problems of poverty and illiteracy. The British Council is engaged in combating those problems, with the help of the Department for International Development. Britain can play a useful role because of the increase in the proportion of our gross domestic product that goes to overseas aid generally, but this is a priority for Europe. In the past 10 years, Europe has perhaps focused on its eastern and northern borders, but now we have to look south from Turkey to Cyprus and the Maghreb to see what we can do to improve the condition of all the people there.

Donald Anderson: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a strong desire in all the countries of the north African littoral to enhance their relationship with NATO, the EU and, of course, with our own country bilaterally? We have a great deal to offer, and that is very much in our interests because we need to manage immigration and, of course, given the fight against terrorism. Will he indicate what sort of specific initiatives—for example, scholarships and other means—we have, apart from the ministerial conference, to seek to promote stability and improve our general relationship with that region, our new neighbours?

Denis MacShane: Yesterday, at the conference of European Foreign Ministers, a very important decision was taken to lift the arms embargo on Libya, as a direct—I hate to use the word "reward" because that sounds a little condescending—and correct reaction to the fact that Libya has given a commitment, thanks to the initiative that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and his US opposite number took in getting it to do so, to resile completely from the development of weapons of mass destruction. Much progress is still to be made, and the Government are greatly concerned about some Bulgarian medical staff who are under the most appalling and unfair pressure in Libya. None the less, the progress made shows how engagement works, how working through the EU works and why Britain must stay engaged fully in the region, through the EU, and reject the isolationists temptations that we have heard from some right-wing political parties in recent months.

Iraq

Eric Illsley: If he will make a statement on the situation in Iraq.

Alistair Carmichael: If he will make a statement on the situation in Iraq.

Jack Straw: I will make a statement on Iraq at the end of questions.

Eric Illsley: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that successful result to my question—17 years, and the first positive response.
	On a more sombre note, may I express my sincere condolences to the family of the murdered British hostage, Ken Bigley, and ask my right hon. Friend whether the coalition forces can take any measures to try to increase the security of western workers in Iraq, to try to prevent or limit any more of those horrific kidnappings, given the fear and terror and, of course, publicity that they generate, particularly in the run-up to the Iraqi elections in January?

Jack Straw: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his expression of condolences to the Bigley family because I know that such things are making a great deal of difference to them.
	The coalition has a number of measures in place, which it is always seeking to improve, to ensure the safety and security of non-Iraqi and Iraqi workers in the country. We give a lot of advice on our website. It is crucial for those who work in Iraq to register with the British embassy in Baghdad, provide full details of where they are and take detailed advice on appropriate protection. That does not eliminate risk, but it certainly reduces it.

Alistair Carmichael: Who is responsible for the reported disappearance of dual-purpose nuclear material in Iraq?

Jack Straw: That is not clear. I am seeking many more details following the receipt of the International Atomic Energy Agency report overnight, but it appears that most of the unauthorised removal took place in the immediate aftermath of the major conflict in March and April 2003. I asked for a detailed report before I came to the House and I shall ensure that its results are made available to hon. Members.

Peter Kilfoyle: The Foreign Secretary has launched another pre-emptive strike on those of us who wanted to raise now matters that will come up later. In the aftermath of the horrific kidnapping and murder of Ken Bigley, may I put on record the real appreciation of the Bigley family and the city of Liverpool to the Foreign Secretary? He has handled a very difficult situation with great dignity and sensitivity, which has been to his utmost credit.

Jack Straw: I thank my hon. Friend for that. May I express my appreciation to him, as the constituency Member for the Bigley family, for all the help and support that he gave the family, which I know that they have greatly appreciated?

Gary Streeter: May I associate the Conservative party with remarks about the Foreign Secretary's efforts in relation to Mr. Bigley? I know that the Foreign Secretary will make a statement on Iraq in a moment, but is he aware of a report in The New York Times on 8 October that said that the Pentagon had identified 20 to 30 Iraqi towns that must be brought under control before elections can take place next January? As part of the coalition forces in Iraq, are British troops likely to take part in that campaign? Does the Foreign Secretary have a view on how much of Iraq must be brought under control before valid elections can take place?

Jack Straw: Assiduous though I am about reading The New York Times, I was not aware of that report—I shall look at it afterwards. Such a list was not discussed with me when I was in Iraq last week. It is perfectly plain, as I shall spell out in more detail in my statement, that there must be a better level of security throughout Iraq. We are not putting a figure on that any more than we did in Afghanistan because that would play into the hands of the terrorists. Although the situation remains difficult, there are indications that things are getting better, not least the agreement brokered last week between Moqtada al-Sadr and Prime Minister Allawi, which looks as though it is holding and will lead to peace and reconstruction in Sadr City.

Terrorism (South-east Asia)

Meg Munn: What discussions he has had with the Government of Australia on combating terrorism in south-east Asia.

Douglas Alexander: The Government remain committed to working with the Governments of south-east Asia to combat all forms of terrorism. We have regular discussions with the Government of Australia on the terrorist threat in south-east Asia. My right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary wrote to their Australian counterparts to offer our support and assistance to the Australian Government and people following the attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta on 9 September in which nine people were killed. On this, the second anniversary of the Bali bombing, our thoughts remain with the victims and their families.

Meg Munn: I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. He rightly points out that today is the second anniversary of the Bali bombing, which killed not only many young Australians, but several British citizens, including one of my constituents. Is the Foreign Office satisfied with the work that is being done in that area between Australia and Indonesia? Given our interests in the area, is every effort being made to support that?

Douglas Alexander: Of course we condemn utterly the bombing of the Australian embassy on 9 September. As I made clear, both the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have communicated directly with the Australian Government, offering what assistance we can in the continuing efforts to combat terrorism. It is clear not just from that incident but from other terrorist incidents that the need for countries to work collaboratively across borders has never been greater in terms of the challenge of global terrorism. In that regard, Britain continues to play a leading role, not just in south-east Asia but right around the world.

Patrick Mercer: It took the British Government more than 18 months to implement some of the security lessons that Australia was so brutally taught by the Bali bomb. It is clear that the bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta would have resulted in many more casualties had the Australians not pre-empted the problem and reacted with great skill. May I ask that the British Government react with much more speed to this incident than they did to the Bali bombing?

Douglas Alexander: I am sure that the House recognises that we do not discuss the security of individual embassies, but I can confirm that I met the Indonesian ambassador recently. It is only fair to point out that we passed counter-terrorism legislation expeditiously after the events of 9/11 and we continue to take whatever measures necessary to safeguard the security of the British people.

Israel

Martin Linton: What representations he has made to the Israeli Prime Minister on his proposal to expand the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim on the west bank.

Jack Straw: A great many representations have been made calling on Israel to freeze all settlement activity. We have raised our concerns with Prime Minister Sharon's office and the Israeli ambassador in London. The Prime Minister and I raised settlement expansion with Israeli Vice-Prime Minister Olmert on 8 September. In my discussions with Israel, I specifically pressed my concerns about the proposed expansion of Ma'ale Adumim.

Martin Linton: I thank my right hon. Friend for making representations to the Israeli Prime Minister and the Vice-Prime Minister. Does he share the pessimistic assessment of Israeli Labour party MPs who believe that the expansion of settlements such as Ma'ale Adumim, deep in Palestinian territory, shows that disengagement is just a cover for assimilation, that the road map is all but dead and that if he is allowed to continue in this way, Ariel Sharon will be laughing all the way to the west bank?

Jack Straw: I do not take such a pessimistic view. Our position on the settlements in the west bank, as in Gaza, is clear: they are not lawful and it is not in Israel's long-term interests to pursue them. The road map is not dead. I am aware that one or two comments have been made off-message in Israel about the road map, but they have been confounded by official spokesmen, and there was a good meeting of the Quartet, which supervises the road map, in New York on 25 September.
	The situation is very difficult. The crucial thing is that we first see a withdrawal from Gaza by the Israelis as they promised. We need the removal of all the settlements there, which, as my hon. Friend will know, is very controversial in Israel, and strong international support for the Palestinian Authority to ensure that it can run the territory once Israel has removed itself from it. We must then ensure that similar withdrawals take place on the west bank.

Menzies Campbell: I, too, join in the expressions of sympathy to the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram).
	Does the Foreign Secretary understand that in Arab countries, where the particular nature of resolutions under chapter VII of the United Nations charter may not be fully appreciated, there is none the less an overwhelming sense of double standards when Security Council resolutions are sought to be used to justify military action against Iraq, but resolutions directed against the occupation of the west bank go unimplemented?

Jack Straw: There are a range of resolutions in respect of Israel/Palestine, including 242, 338 and 1397. They place obligations not only on Israel, but on the Palestinians in respect of terrorism, and on the international community. It is lamentable that they have not been implemented. The road map seeks to ensure that they are implemented. There are clear obligations on Israel to stop the settlement building, to stop targeted assassinations and to move the route of the barrier, but there are also clear obligations on the Palestinians to ensure that they really do—I have been saying this for three and a half years without a great deal of effect—take proper control of the rejectionist terrorist organisations operating within their territory. In addition, countries outside the occupied territories—their neighbours—must cease supporting the rejectionist terrorist groups.

David Winnick: Should not the international community be far more robust in opposing what Sharon and his cronies are doing on Palestinian land? Should there not be far stronger condemnation of the way in which, day in and day out, the Israeli armed forces act against Palestinians, causing immense harm, death and destruction? Should we not condemn that in the same way as we rightly condemn suicide bombings, which are, of course, totally unacceptable?

Jack Straw: I do condemn it. I have made that clear. Targeted assassinations and the untargeted killings of innocent Palestinians in pursuit of military operations are unlawful and unacceptable to the whole international community. We have made that as clear as we have our condemnation of suicide bombing.

Patrick Cormack: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the attitude and actions of the democratically elected Government of Israel constitute perhaps the greatest single obstacle to peace in the middle east?

Jack Straw: I do not believe that. Israel's voting system has complicated Israeli politics to an incredible extent, as any sensible Israeli politician, left, right or centre, would be the first to say. Those who wish to adopt national list proportional representation need to bear in mind the political chaos that it produces—I mention that parenthetically, Mr. Speaker.
	Israel is a proud democracy and we should salute it for that. It must be borne in mind that one of the reasons why the present Government are facing a collapse of their coalition as they seek withdrawal from Gaza and the removal of the settlements is that, unlike the Governments of some of the other states in the region, they have to get those proposals through the democratically elected, and rather difficult, Knesset.

Louise Ellman: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that those who seek peace should welcome the Israeli Government's intention to withdraw from all settlements in Gaza as a first step? Does he also agree with the statement of Yasser Arafat's Prime Minister that the Palestinians should cease to support and incite terrorism, and thereby fulfil their promise in the road map?

Jack Straw: I agree with both those statements. Although it is hardly a secret that Prime Minister Sharon is not the favourite politician of every Member of this House, we should judge all politicians on their proposals, and Prime Minister Sharon's proposals on withdrawal from Gaza and the removal of the settlements there are fully consistent with the road map and courageous and they ought to be welcomed.

Gary Streeter: I commend the Foreign Secretary for the balance that he is trying to strike between the Israeli Government's sometimes rather inappropriate behaviour and the Palestinian Authority's inability to bear down on rejectionist terrorists. He mentioned the importance of security in the Gaza strip post-withdrawal, but what specifically will the British Government do to bring about a state of security?

Jack Straw: We are already doing a good deal to support security in the Palestinian Authority area—for security reasons, mainly in the west bank rather than in Gaza. I am giving active consideration to what further steps we can take to ensure that the Palestinian Authority can operate effectively within Gaza after withdrawal has taken place.

Gary Streeter: It was interesting to hear during the recent Labour party conference that the Prime Minister will make revival of the middle east peace process a personal priority after November. Have we not heard that before? When did this crucial peace process stop being a priority for the Prime Minister, and why?

Jack Straw: The peace process has never stopped being a priority for the Prime Minister, and he remains wholly committed to it. My right hon. Friend was simply drawing attention to a fact of life over which we have as little control as we have over the fact that the sun rises in the east, which is that the United States presidential election takes place on 2 November.

Brian Iddon: Is not the Israelis' intention merely to transfer settlers from the Gaza strip to the west bank, and does not the recent statement by Mr. Sharon's chief of staff that disengagement in Gaza will effectively derail the peace process give the lie to the Israelis' real intentions?

Jack Straw: I do not think that my hon. Friend's first point is correct. In any case, if we are to get full withdrawal from Gaza and the west bank, it has to start somewhere. The Israelis have committed themselves to full withdrawal from Gaza and we should welcome that. As for what I gather was said by Mr. Sharon's adviser, Mr. Dov Weissglass, it has been disavowed by official Israeli Government spokesmen.
	I refer my hon. Friend also to an important interview which Vice-Prime Minister Olmert gave in The New York Times in the middle of August—which I read—in which he spelt out the importance of Israel sticking to the two-state solution. He drew attention to the fact that if Israel did not do that, it would either become undemocratic or it would cease to be Jewish. There are arguments, which intelligent Israelis fully understand, that are in favour of the road map and a two-state solution broadly within the boundaries set out in 1967 for the Israelis as well as the Palestinians.

Sudan

Elfyn Llwyd: What recent assessment he has made of steps taken by the Sudanese Government to resolve the crisis in Darfur.

Chris Mullin: I visited Darfur last month. The situation remains extremely serious. Despite some progress on the humanitarian side, the Government of Sudan have not done enough to improve security. Ceasefire violations by rebel and Government forces continue. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister discussed those issues last week with the Sudanese President. We have made it clear to the Sudanese that they will be judged by their actions and not by their words.

Elfyn Llwyd: I thank the Minister for that response. I welcome the Prime Minister's intervention in the Sudan and the five-point peace plan that was tabled. Does the Minister share the concern of many, including Amnesty International, that the proposed increase of African Union monitors, although welcome, leads to concern that the mandate and the capacity of those monitors should be strengthened to enable them to do a real job of providing security?
	Secondly, what efforts are being made to ensure that UN human rights observers are increased in their numbers and properly resourced to carry out their responsibilities?

Chris Mullin: I share the hon. Gentleman's concern, especially with regard to making the UN monitoring force more effective. We want to see it expanded and we want also to see the mandate strengthened. These issues are under discussion. We want to see the number of human rights monitors increased. We have been giving logistical support to the African Union as and when that is needed. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that there is a capacity issue. For example, we helped to fly in some of the Nigerian troops.

Rob Marris: My hon. Friend will know that Sudan is the ninth largest country in the world and that it is the largest country in the world that is not currently a federal state. Looking at the medium term, both in terms of Darfur and other parts of Sudan, what assurances can my hon. Friend give me that the UK Government are pressing the Government of Sudan to implement the peace agreements that were signed in Kenya this April, which included the establishment of a federal government in Sudan, which would go some way towards preventing certain crises such as Darfur in future?

Chris Mullin: We believe that a settlement between the north and south of the country could provide a template for a settlement, eventually, in Darfur and in other parts of this tragic country. I am glad to say that the talks at Naivasha, in Kenya, resumed on 7 October. We are fairly optimistic that they will reach a conclusion. We are making it clear to all parties that we want to see progress. It is urgent that there is progress if we are to see a long-term solution to the problems of Sudan.

Charles Taylor

Claire Curtis-Thomas: What representations he has made to Nigeria with respect to the arrest of Charles Taylor.

Chris Mullin: We believe that Charles Taylor must be called to account for his crimes, preferably before the special court in Sierra Leone. We have made representations to this effect to President Obasanjo. We remain grateful to the President and his Government for their role in diffusing the crisis in Liberia.

Claire Curtis-Thomas: I am grateful to hear that answer from my hon. Friend. Charles Taylor is a notorious individual who is responsible for the murder and mutilation of thousands of people. I for one would be delighted to see him before a special court, which the British Government have played a crucial role in establishing in Sierra Leone. What is my hon. Friend seeking to do to bring the other perpetrators of great injustice in Liberia to account, and preferably before a hearing in the special court?

Chris Mullin: The number of indictments issued by the special court is limited, but they include Mr. Taylor. As my hon. Friend may be aware, trials have already started, and we are anxious that progress is made as swiftly as possible. It is essential, if there is to be peace in west Africa, that the culture of impunity that has prevailed in the region for many years is brought to an end, and we regard the special court as a means of achieving that.

Andrew MacKay: Would the Minister impress on the Nigerian Government the fact that if Nigeria is to punch its full weight as the regional power it will be largely judged on its actions regarding Charles Taylor? Bringing him before the court in Sierra Leone is urgently necessary.

Chris Mullin: Nigeria will be judged on a wide variety of actions, not least the positive role that it has played in Sudan and the AU, and on other issues. We must recognise that Charles Taylor is in Nigeria only because President Obasanjo resolved a difficult problem facing Liberia at the time. That country was facing a real crisis, and his decision to get Charles Taylor out of the country brought it to an end. We must acknowledge that before we go on to discuss what should happen to Mr. Taylor in future. The indictment against Charles Taylor, however, is for life. It will not go away, and the sooner he is indicted, the better—that is the Government's position.

Iraq

Jack Straw: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on Iraq.
	I know that I speak for the whole House in offering our condolences and deepest sympathies to the family of Kenneth Bigley. Throughout their ordeal, the Bigley family have conducted themselves with the greatest dignity, courage and strength. I also want to pay tribute to the dedication and professionalism of all those who worked to support Mr. Bigley's family and to try to secure his release—our officials in Baghdad, Bangkok and London, police officers from Merseyside and the Metropolitan Police Service and, if I may make a particular point, the Muslim Council of Britain, which was indefatigable it its work to try to secure his release. I thank the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), as well as the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) who, because of a bereavement, cannot be present today, for the restraint and co-operation that they and their parties showed throughout.
	The House will understand that there is a limit to the information that I can give about the events leading up to the news of Mr. Bigley's death last Friday. However, at the beginning of last week, an individual approached the British embassy in Baghdad, presenting himself as a potential intermediary with the captors. Messages were exchanged with the hostage-takers in an attempt to dissuade them from carrying out their threat to kill Mr. Bigley, but at no stage did the hostage-takers abandon their demands relating to the release of women prisoners, even though they were well aware that there were and are no women prisoners in British custody in Iraq. These communications were fully in line with the Government's long-standing approach to kidnapping—while ready to receive messages from kidnappers, we cannot negotiate with them. Kenneth Bigley's family in Liverpool and his wife in Thailand were kept fully aware of our communications with that intermediary.
	On Friday afternoon, the intermediary provided us with proof beyond doubt that Ken Bigley's captors had carried out their threat to kill him. On Friday evening, I travelled to Liverpool to convey our sympathies and condolences to Mr. Bigley's family. Kenneth Bigley was a decent man who was in Iraq for no other purpose than to earn his living by working for the benefit of the Iraqi people. His capture, the ordeal imposed on him and his family, and his murder were acts of utter barbarism. Our thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Bigley's family and friends.
	I should now like to turn to the report of the Iraq survey group on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction which, as the House will be aware, was published last Wednesday, 6 October. The full text of the report is available on the internet, and I have attached to the written text of my statement, which is available now in the Vote Office, the Iraq survey group's "Key Findings".
	The report concludes that by the mid-1990s, Iraq was essentially free of weapons of mass destruction, but it goes on to describe a sophisticated and systematic campaign by Saddam Hussein to bring down the United Nations sanctions regime and to reconstitute his weapons programme. It shows how Saddam Hussein subverted the oil-for-food programme in order to reward people
	"for their service and efforts in undermining the resolve of the international community to enforce UN Security Council resolutions".
	The report goes on to state that the
	"ISG assesses that Saddam clearly intended to reconstitute long-range delivery systems and that the systems potentially were for WMD".
	It continues:
	"Saddam never abandoned his intentions to resume a CW effort when sanctions were lifted and conditions were judged favourable".
	I should like to give just one more example. The report says that the
	"ISG judges, based on available chemicals, infrastructure, and scientist debriefings, that Iraq"—
	in 2003—
	"probably had a capability to produce large quantities of sulphur mustard within three to six months."
	The report provides chapter and verse as to why the policy of containment was not working. Indeed, in July 2000, as it makes clear, the ruling Ba'ath party newspaper Al Thawra
	"claimed victory over UN sanctions",
	and in August 2001 the Iraqi Foreign Minister claimed that United Nations sanctions efforts had "collapsed". Saddam Hussein's regime was dedicated to deceiving the international community, and it was working flat out to undermine containment and rebuild the weapons capability that it had already used on its own people and neighbours.
	As the Prime Minister did in his speech at our party's conference, I of course accept that some of the information on which we based our judgments was wrong. But before turning to that, I want to pay tribute to the work of Britain's intelligence services, which is usually done in difficult and dangerous circumstances around the world. Their successes and contribution are necessarily often unsung and unrecognised, but yesterday the European Union recognised a key success from the same people in the British intelligence service in respect of Libya. When we lifted our sanctions on Libya, it was through our intelligence people—the same people who had detected through the same methods the fact that Libya was developing an unacceptable and large programme of WMD—and by ours and others' diplomatic efforts that we managed to ensure that Libya is safe and is brought back into the international community.
	The House will recall that the Butler committee concluded, among many other things, that the validity of the line of reporting that included the 45-minute intelligence had come into question. It further concluded that reporting received from a liaison service on Iraqi production of biological agent was "seriously flawed". The House will now wish to be aware that the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service has written to my right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Ann Taylor), the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, formally withdrawing those two lines of reporting.
	But I do not accept, even with hindsight, that we were wrong to act as we did in the circumstances that we faced at the time. Even after reading all the evidence detailed by the Iraq survey group, it is still hard to believe that any regime could behave in so self-destructive a manner as to pretend that it had forbidden weaponry, when in fact it had not. It is still hard to comprehend the logic of Saddam's behaviour in resisting UN inspections in 1998, and indeed driving out the inspectors, when he could have demonstrated that he had no weapons of mass destruction. He could even more easily have given the United Nations the full co-operation demanded by resolution 1441—the kind of access and ability to interview key scientists that has now allowed the ISG to reach the verdict that he had no WMD stockpiles, but which UNMOVIC was denied.
	Even in the few days before the conflict, Saddam refused our offer to meet a handful of tests that would have shown that he had no WMD, such as delivering just 30 scientists for interview outside Iraq, completing the destruction of the illegal al-Samoud missiles or surrendering all anthrax or providing credible evidence of its destruction. Those were just a few questions drawn from the 173 pages-worth of unresolved issues and questions that the United Nations weapons inspectors were detailing four months after the passage of resolution 1441. In the circumstances, deciding to give Saddam the benefit of the doubt would have required a huge leap of faith. We would have had to conclude that all the intelligence—not only ours, but that from many other agencies around the world—was wrong. We would have had to decide, with no evidence, and despite Saddam's resistance to inspections, that he had in fact disposed of his WMD without telling the UN.
	Instead, we made the judgment that it would not be safe to turn away and leave Saddam re-empowered and re-emboldened. Although we can now plainly see that some of the intelligence was wrong, I continue to believe that the judgments that we made and the actions that we took were right. Let it never be forgotten that the whole of the international community, including all 15 members of the UN Security Council, concluded from its own evidence, and not from our intelligence, that Saddam posed a threat to international peace and security, and it did not resile from that conclusion in the four months after resolution 1441.
	On the current situation in Iraq, I travelled to Iraq last week and met the President, Prime Minister and other Iraqi politicians including Kurdish and other leaders in the north of Iraq, members of the Interim National Council, UN Special Representative Ashraf Qazi and the UN elections team. The elections to be held next January were one of the key themes in my discussions. Logistical preparations are moving ahead: voter registration is in hand, information on the elections is beginning to be distributed and training for national election staff is also on schedule. I stressed to UN Special Representative Qazi the vital importance of the UN increasing its presence on the ground in Iraq in the run-up to the elections. It is crucial that the UN plays its full part in advising on the electoral process in Iraq, a point that I have since reiterated to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
	The greatest difficulty faced by Iraq's Government in preparing for elections is, of course, the security situation, especially in the Sunni areas in the centre of the country where the violence has been concentrated. I was impressed by Prime Minister Allawi's determination to improve security. His strategy is threefold: first, substantive political engagement with Sunni leaders to persuade them that their interests are best served inside rather than outside the political process; secondly, rapid progress on reconstruction to improve people's daily lives; and thirdly, strengthening and accelerating the training of Iraq's security forces so that they can play the lead role in tackling the insurgency.
	That approach is, I believe, beginning to pay off, with welcome progress in the Sunni town of Samarra and in the predominantly Shi'a suburb of Baghdad, Sadr city. Falluja remains the most acute concern, and we will continue to support the Iraqi Government as they work to tackle it. However, despite the security situation in some parts of the country, all the Iraqi politicians whom I met, who came from many parties and who included Prime Minister Allawi, were committed to national elections going ahead in January as planned.
	Local elections are already being held in the south of the country, and the Iraqi people are showing a real appetite for choosing their leaders and holding them to account, an experience which has not occurred in the living memory of almost every single Iraqi. Successful national elections would deal a huge blow to the terrorists and insurgents who reject the ballot box and who seek to rule with the bullet and the bomb.
	It is worth remembering that some—not to say many—warned that security would prevent elections in Afghanistan, and I remember dealing with that matter in this House not many months ago, but over the weekend we saw a huge turnout. In Iraq, although security is of course important for elections, only progress with elections can deliver lasting improvement on security, allow civil society and businesses to grow and enable trade unions, journalists, women's groups and all those denied the right to exist under Saddam to emerge from the darkness of his terrible regime.
	It is vital that Iraqis take the lead in building stability and in shaping their political future, but they will continue to need the support of the international community. I therefore welcome the support of the group of Iraq's neighbours for both the Interim Government and an inclusive political process in Iraq, and their efforts to improve border security and stop terrorists getting into the country.
	The international community meets in Tokyo tomorrow to review progress on reconstruction in Iraq. Already, projects to rebuild Iraq are employing almost 500,000 Iraqis who were not employed before. Preparations are also well under way for an international conference on Iraq to be held next month in Egypt, which was envisaged by Security Council resolution 1546, and which I shall attend.
	The United Kingdom will continue to play a leading role in the international effort to support Iraq. I here pay tribute to the bravery and dedication of all the British personnel in Iraq, military and civilian, which I again saw for myself last week. Their work is vital as the Iraqi people seek to defeat the men of violence and to build a peaceful and prosperous future for their country.

Gary Streeter: I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for his courtesy in making a copy available in advance.
	I join the Foreign Secretary in sending our deepest condolences to Ken Bigley's family. They have borne their tragedy with great dignity and courage. We are all revolted by the barbaric cruelty shown by his kidnappers, and we stand with the Bigley family at this difficult time. I also add our thanks to all those who worked so hard in trying to secure his release.
	Can the Foreign Secretary tell us what confidence he has that al-Zarqawi and his fellow murderers can be captured and brought to justice? Can he give any details about the part played by Ministers in the Government's efforts to secure Mr. Bigley's release? Does he believe that the Government could have done anything more to help Mr. Bigley, especially during his brave escape?
	Our troops are carrying out, in very difficult circumstances, and with great courage and self-sacrifice, counter-insurgency and other operations in Iraq. We again pay tribute to their bravery and loyal service. But can the Foreign Secretary tell us more about the chain of command that exists in Iraq? What is the relationship between British troops, the other troops in the coalition forces and the Interim Iraqi Government? What are the means through which the British Government can influence operations carried out by the Americans?
	The January elections are an important step in reaching the goal of a stable, democratic Iraq. What lessons can be learned from the picture that is emerging from the recent elections in Afghanistan? Why have we had no statements to the House on that important developing situation?
	Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the situation in Iraq would now be far less grave had there been proper planning for post-war reconstruction, as we repeatedly urged for months before the conflict began and thereafter? As Sir Jeremy Greenstock and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) have confirmed, there was no adequate plan. When will the House and the country receive a proper explanation for that serious omission?
	I come to the Iraq survey group's report. The House will recall the Prime Minister's words of 30 July last year, when he said we should
	"wait and see when they"—
	the ISG—
	"come up with their report what the true facts are."
	We have waited and now we have seen.
	The report alleges an appalling corruption of the sanctions regime, including the provision of oil vouchers to officials in countries that were blocking United Nations decisions. Were the Government aware of that corruption at the time the alleged events took place? What does the Foreign Secretary believe that it tells us about the way in which the UN operates?
	The report's findings are dramatic: that Saddam Hussein has had no weapons of mass destruction for several years. Yes, he had a horrifying track record and the risks of leaving him in place were very great. He was a dangerous presence in the world's most volatile region. The world is better off without him. Those were all powerful arguments for going to war. But that is not the case that the Government made. The Prime Minister told us that
	"the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt . . . that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons"
	and that he was
	"in no doubt that the threat is serious and current."
	He told us that Saddam's WMD programme was "active, detailed and growing", and that it was
	"not shut down; it is up and running".—[Official Report, 24 September 2002; Vol. 390, c.3.]
	But the Iraq survey group found no such thing. How did the Prime Minister get it so wrong?
	We have reluctantly come to accept that when the Prime Minister comes to the House to talk about health or education, he spins and twists and bends, because that is what he does. However, on issues affecting the safety of the nation, the public expect the truth. All the way through, the intelligence advice to the Prime Minister was couched in caveat and caution. However, in the hands of this Prime Minister, caveats were stripped away and cautions were removed.
	While the Joint Intelligence Committee told the Prime Minister that intelligence was sporadic, patchy and limited, the Prime Minister told us that it was extensive, detailed and authoritative. He did not behave as a British Prime Minister should. The next time that he comes to the Dispatch Box to commit British troops, who will believe him? That is why the British people must receive a full explanation and a full apology—not an apology for the intelligence but an apology for the way in which the Government conveyed the intelligence to the country. That is the apology for which we are waiting. Will the Foreign Secretary now make that apology?

Jack Straw: I thought that the hon. Gentleman started quite well, and I thank him for what he had to say in respect of the Bigley family. I will come on to the further episodes of flip-flop that we have just seen.
	On the hon. Gentleman's points about the Bigley family, he asked me whether I have confidence that al-Zarqawi can be captured. All that I can say is that al-Zarqawi's apprehension remains a key priority for all the coalition forces and for the Iraqis—most of al-Zarqawi's victims, like most of the other terrorists' victims in Iraq, are Iraqis. Those elements are not going at the multinational force, but are trying to stop democracy in Iraq—so it is in everybody's interest that he should be captured.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about Ministers' role in Iraq. I can only say that by chance I was in Iraq on a long-planned visit when we got news from the intermediary. I was therefore able to be fully involved in discussions about the decisions made, and to ensure that the Prime Minister was fully involved, too. The hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not go into more detail than I have already offered the House. He asked whether there was any more that we could have done. In the circumstances, we did a lot, but it ended tragically. I rack my brains, as everyone does, about whether there were other things that we could have done. I do not think that there were, but I want to make it clear that there will be a full internal review of what we have done, to examine whether we could have done other things that might have made a difference, although I genuinely do not think so.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about the chain of command, which is set out in the relevant paragraphs of United Nations Security Council resolution 1546, and the two letters sent by Prime Minister Allawi and Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Security Council. They work well, and we have a three-star general, General McColl, who is embedded in the key central command in Baghdad, to whom I talked while I was there, as well as our day-to-day operational command in the areas that we control in the south. One of the things that caused anxiety when resolution 1546 was being developed was whether the Iraqis would have sufficient say over key and sensitive operations such as Falluja. I am satisfied that they do.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether there was proper planning for reconstruction. There was proper planning—the problem was in relation to implementation of that planning. I accept, to put it at its mildest, that there were clearly lessons to be learned. One of the things that was unanticipated, however, was the speed with which the Saddam regime would collapse.
	Turning to the ISG report, the hon. Gentleman asked me whether we were aware of the corruption. We had intelligence that suggested corruption, but we did not have explicit evidence, which required full access to all the documentation held in the relevant Ministries in Iraq. That was why we did not surface it.
	The hon. Gentleman went on to make extravagant and completely unjustified comments about the Prime Minister in relation to the intelligence that we made public. I make two points to him on that. First, there was a huge demand from March 2002 for us to put before the House a summary of the intelligence that we had seen. That came from the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Opposition, and the House as a whole properly asked to see the case. That dossier, as the House is well aware—there have now been three inquiries into its provenance—accurately reflected the views of the Joint Intelligence Committee at the time and was signed off by it. Secondly—I will place these documents in the Library and make them publicly available—the House should be aware that we sought to cross-check the dossier with many people. One of my officials in New York showed Dr. Blix section 6 of a slightly earlier version of the dossier, which I am very happy to make publicly available so that it can be contrasted with the final published version. My official wrote a letter on 12 March 2002 to my then private secretary, the full text of which I will publish, which stated:
	"On the whole, Blix liked section 6—he felt it did not exaggerate the facts, nor revert to rhetoric, probably both desirable for its credibility."
	That referred to the section on Iraqi chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missile programmes—the current position. It is important that the House fully understands that the evidence that we put forward was a view that was widely shared at the time by other foreign intelligence agencies, as well, as it happened, by Dr. Blix.

Menzies Campbell: This is a rather ambivalent occasion on which the House is both united and divided. Truly, the murder of Mr. Bigley was an act of gross inhumanity and barbarism. Words are inadequate to describe the fear, humiliation and pain that he must have experienced as his life was cruelly and wantonly taken from him—an act later to be made the subject of a macabre video.
	As the Foreign Secretary has generously acknowledged, the Liberal Democrats supported the Government on this matter. I hope that he will understand when I say that we did so with a heavy heart, because we could foresee the consequences. Like the Foreign Secretary, we, too, wish to acknowledge the dignity and courage of Mr. Bigley's family, on whose emotions his captors played with a total lack of moral scruple.
	I very much regret that in spite of the spirit of the first part of the Foreign Secretary's statement, I am unable to share the Government's conclusions about the ISG report. The Foreign Secretary acknowledges that the report shows that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and no programmes of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He tells us that there was an intention. There was indeed an intention, but, to quote the report, there was
	"no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions".
	That prompts me to ask the Foreign Secretary how the regime can be said to have been working flat out to rebuild its WMD capability if it had no strategy or plan for doing so. Does he now accept that there was no "real and present danger", no "serious and current threat", and, as revealed by the leaked Foreign Office documents, from some of which the Foreign Secretary emerges with some personal credit, the true objective, 12 months in advance of military action, was regime change? Does he accept that regime change is illegal in international law, as is military action based on an unspecific intention to acquire weapons of mass destruction in future?

Jack Straw: First, I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for what he had to say in respect of the Bigley family. As I said, notwithstanding other differences on Iraq, I greatly appreciate that the whole House and the whole country came together as they did. It made my life a lot easier having the full co-operation of the right hon. Gentleman and also the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram).
	Let me deal with the ISG report. For the convenience of the House, I have appended the relevant document to the written text of my statement. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right to say that there was no formal written plan, but that needs to be seen in the context of the ISG report.

Bob Russell: Back of an envelope.

Jack Straw: The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell)—I almost referred to him as a right hon. Member, but I do not want to undermine the integrity of the Privy Council. [Interruption.] Hon. Members say that it is just a matter of time. The hon. Gentleman said that there was no plan, but in fact there was. It is clear from the ISG report that Saddam operated at the level that he did, not by formal written documents, but by making clear his intentions to others and by running a reign of terror. In discussing the ISG's conclusions in an interview with Jon Snow last week, David Kay, Duelfer's immediate predecessor, said:
	"This regime of Saddam Hussein acted as if it had weapons."
	That is the point. It was that behaviour that made matters so difficult for both Governments and for the inspectors.
	That leads me on to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's final point, concerning whether Iraq was a danger. Well, the whole international community came to that judgment. As page after page of the ISG report shows, Saddam was working to degrade the sanctions effort by playing it long with, and seeking to divide, the international community, and by seeking to bribe many of its key actors. At the same time, he was working to maintain his capability of rebuilding very quickly his chemical weapons programme in particular, and part of his biological weapons programme. By God, if he had been allowed to succeed, he would indeed have re-emerged very quickly as a greater threat than before.

Donald Anderson: It is of the utmost importance that the full election timetable be continued until January—even if there are certain no-go areas, where there will have to be some postponement—because any major postponement would be construed as a victory for the insurgents. I was struck by my right hon. Friend's saying that he stressed to the UN Secretary-General that it is vital that the UN increase its presence. Does that imply that he is currently not satisfied with the number of UN personnel present? Of course, the movement of key personnel is restricted to the green zone because of the outrage in August last year. If my right hon. Friend is so dissatisfied, what are the prospects of the UN increasing its presence?

Jack Straw: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about postponement—we have to drive ahead with this timetable. The UN's presence is not as adequate as we all hoped, including the Secretary-General. The key problem is security and ensuring close protection for deployed UN personnel, so that they can get outside, and for their bases. This morning, I was on the telephone to one of the contributor countries to the multinational force—I shall not mention which one—to ensure that it provides active support and supplies protection equipment for one of the countries that, we hope, will be deployed very quickly. The situation is, I think, going to get better. Meanwhile, I pay tribute to one member of UN personnel who is already on the ground: Mr. Carlos Valenzuela, the UN elections expert. He is doing a brilliant job in guiding and advising the already established independent elections commission for Iraq, and he is ensuring—until now, at least—that the elections programme is on time.

Jenny Tonge: The report states in its key findings that, if Saddam had acquired weapons of mass destruction, he would have used them primarily against Iran and Israel and to improve his status in the Arab world. Does that not again highlight the importance of the middle east peace process, and is it not essential that we do something now, together with our European Union partners, rather than waiting until after the American elections in November?

Jack Straw: I completely agree that a resolution of the entire middle east problem, and above all of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, is fundamental to stability in that region and in the rest of the world. The European Union is doing what it can, but it is just a fact of life that the United States is one of the four key partners in the Quartet. Everybody in the EU understands that unless we can bring the United States with us, our ability to influence one of the key parties to the conflict—Israel—is limited.

Robin Cook: I fully accept the statement of my right hon. Friend that, at the time of the invasion, there were questions unanswered. Will he accept in return that, whatever else the ISG report might show, it comprehensively demonstrates that there was no immediate threat from Iraq? Would it not have been wiser to give Hans Blix the extra few months that he asked for to find the answer to those very questions?
	On the current position in Iraq, has my right hon. Friend seen the recent figures from the Iraqi Ministry of Health, our own allies, which show that two thirds of the civilians killed in the last six months died as a result of coalition bombing? Will he redouble his efforts to convince the Pentagon that, if we are to succeed in winning over Iraqi opinion, they need to show the same restraint shown by British forces, and to remember that they are in Iraq to keep the peace, not to wage a war?

Jack Straw: In a spirit of friendship and comradeship, I will not embarrass my right hon. Friend by pointing out all the things that he said when he was in my position about the threat posed by Saddam and his weapons—[Hon. Members: "Go on."] No, I will leave that aside. The heart of the argument in March 2003 was whether we could allow Dr. Blix and his colleagues more time to complete their inspections. The problem was that, although we wanted to allow Dr. Blix more time, there was not an effective international consensus for doing so. I made a statement on 10 March that year, following the failure on 7 March in respect of the six—just six—key points that the Security Council published for Saddam to consider. We would have accepted his agreement—we were going to take yes for an answer—and I should also point out that Dr. Blix went through those six key points. The whole purpose was to establish a clear template by which we could judge whether or not Saddam was complying with Security Council resolutions. It was Saddam who refused.
	Meanwhile, there was a fact of life that we had to deal with. One permanent member of the Security Council said that "whatever the circumstances"—the exact phrase used—France would veto any decision in respect of military action. The only reason we got inspectors back into Iraq, following their being driven out by Saddam in late 1998, was thanks to the massing of troops and the threat of military action. A failure to follow through that threat would have led not to Dr. Blix being able to complete his task, but to the degradation of the whole policy of containment. Saddam would have got what he wanted.
	That was the argument, and I accept and respect the fact that my right hon. Friend took a different view. But I can honestly say that I have been through this issue many times, and that we did our best to persuade Saddam to give us a yes for an answer. We would have taken it, and no, we would not then have sought regime change. It would have been impossible for the Prime Minister or me to come to this House and seek support for military action if Dr. Blix had at any stage said that Saddam had complied. However, he had not.

Ann Widdecombe: The Foreign Secretary will remember, because he was involved in events at the time, that about nine years ago, in good faith and based on repeated personal assurances from the highest possible official advice, I made a statement at the Dispatch Box that turned out to be untrue. Within days, I came back to the Dispatch Box, put the truth on the record and apologised to the House of Commons, simply because I believed—I was advised at the time that there were other ways of correcting the record—that we degrade public life if we do not adhere to truth. Why will not the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister please now apologise for giving information to this House that was not true?

Jack Straw: I remember the case when the right hon. Lady came before the House then and she did well, but I also remember plenty of occasions when I was Home Secretary when I apologised to the House for the sort of disastrous thing that used to happen more often when she was running the Home Office than when I was. I once described it as "business as usual" at the Home Office, and I recall her castigating me for doing that on four separate occasions in one week.
	I am the first to make an apology when I feel that it is due, but I must tell the right hon. Lady that the position is rather different here. The Prime Minister has already made it clear in his speech at the party conference that
	"The evidence about Saddam having actual chemical and biological weapons, as opposed to the capability to develop them, has turned out to be wrong. I acknowledge that and accept it."
	He then went on:
	"And the problem is, I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam."
	That is the position, and I am happy to repeat it here.

Laura Moffatt: My right hon. Friend knows that deeply held views expressed in the House on both sides of the argument are to be respected. That is certainly my position. A local doctor working in a hospital in my constituency who comes from Iraq is in regular contact with his family there. They know what is going on and they are constantly telling him that life is much better for them, that they now enjoy a sense of freedom and a decent future at last. What troubles me about the whole debate is that such quiet voices are not getting through. I am not looking through rose-coloured spectacles about what is happening in Iraq, but I believe that we need to listen to those quiet voices.

Jack Straw: I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. The security position is very difficult in some parts of the country, but many of the Iraqis to whom I spoke, who represented a wide range of parties, made exactly the same point as my hon. Friend.
	I want to apologise to my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) for omitting to answer his question about the casualty figures. I have not seen those figures. We keep a close eye on the figures provided by the Iraqi Ministry of Health and by one of the independent websites. I will follow it up, write to my right hon. Friend and place the letter in the Library of the House.

John Stanley: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that if the present appalling level of violence continues in Iraq, there is little prospect of achieving long-term, enduring political stability or successful economic reconstruction? Is it not the case that the violence will be significantly reduced only if there is a radical increase in the number of trained and effective security forces available to the Iraqi Government? Does the right hon. Gentleman see any prospect whatever of achieving that?

Jack Straw: There are signs, notwithstanding the difficulties of the security situation, that the multinational force and the Iraqi security forces are getting on top of it by a combination of tough security measures and a political process—the two go together. That is how some semblance of stability in Samarra and how understanding between the leaders in Sadr City and the MNF were achieved. A huge amount of effort is going into the training and equipping of the Iraqi security forces—the army, the Iraqi national guard and other paramilitary groups, the facilities protection force and the police. The numbers are rising rapidly, but I entirely accept the burden of the right hon. Gentleman's point—that the quicker the Iraqis become wholly responsible for their own security, the better.

Ernie Ross: I support everything that my right hon. Friend has said today and I particularly welcome his comments about the Muslim Council of Britain and its role in the efforts to save Ken Bigley. It is important for the House to focus on the way in which Islam does not agree or go along with the activities of the organisations that perpetrate such actions.
	Does my right hon. Friend intend to have any further conversations with Dr. Blix to go over some of his statements made at the time to compare them with his current statements? It would be worth trying to establish where exactly Dr. Blix stands now on some of his earlier statements before and after the inquiry.

Jack Straw: On the last point, I made sure some time ago that Dr. Blix was made aware of our intention to publish the material in due course. It was also considered by the Intelligence and Security Committee and by the Butler committee, which is useful. Dr. Blix's opinions in September 2002 were a matter for his own judgment, and he came to a different judgment from ours, but it is important for everyone to understand that, far from the dossier being some sort of confection, it was based on the best available judgments not only of ourselves but of the wider international community, including the intelligence agencies of countries that were not in the end supportive of our approach, and of people in the United Nations. Everybody assumed that Saddam had these weapons and made their judgments on that basis. Everybody also assumed that he would become an even bigger threat if the UN measures were not successful.
	On my hon. Friend's point about the Muslim Council of Britain, I entirely endorse what he said. I hope that we can acknowledge the efforts of the Muslim Council of Britain in one particular respect by not falling into the trap set by the terrorists and adorning or dignifying them with the label "Islamic terrorists". They are no more Islamic terrorists than Irish terrorists were Christian terrorists. They are simply terrorists, evil people, and everything that they do defies and defiles the values of Islam.

Edward Leigh: I accept the good faith of the Foreign Secretary, so will he accept the good faith of those of us who voted against the war and acknowledge that we were not just star-struck Arabists or pacifists? Does he accept that we may have had a point in saying that the invasion would make international terrorism worse, and does he think that we may have a smidgen of an argument when we say that the continuing presence of western troops in a Muslim country is a gift to Arab terrorists and extremists? What is his exit plan and how are we going to get our troops out of the morass after the elections in January?

Jack Straw: I have argued with those like the hon. Gentleman who have taken a different view, but I have never challenged their good faith. I am glad to hear that he does not challenge mine, the Prime Minister's or the Cabinet's. For the record, I have never thought of the hon. Gentleman as a star-struck Arabist or a pacifist. I reserve my contempt for those who took one position before and during the military action and a different position after it.
	In Afghanistan, the great fear is of abandonment by western troops, not of occupation. I accept that it is different in Iraq, which is why we are moving rapidly to hand over responsibility to the Iraqi security forces. Resolution 1546 provides that the mandate of the MNF will run out at the end of next year or the end of the political process, which is more or less next year. It would then have to be renewed; otherwise the troops would leave automatically. We are working towards a sensible and orderly process negotiated with the Iraqis. They do not want us to leave until they feel fully capable of running their own security affairs themselves.

Alice Mahon: People are wondering why we cannot have a debate on Iraq. The ISG report certainly demolishes the Government's case for going to war and we are also seeing daily bombing of cities and heavily populated areas such as Sadr City, Falluja, Samarra and others, which is resulting in the huge loss of civilian lives. Are the Government taking account of how many civilians are dead, or of how many women or children are dead or injured? Iraq Body Count estimates about 15,000 losses, and we have heard reference to the Iraq health group, according to which two-thirds of the casualties over the last three months have been civilians. Surely the House should be debating Iraq when those killings are taking place in our name.

Jack Straw: As my hon. Friend knows, what is debated on the Floor of the House is a matter for the Leader of the House, but I will ensure that her views are put to him. I profoundly regret any loss of life, in Iraq or anywhere else. However, let us be clear that in certain parts of that country the MNF and the Iraqi security forces are dealing with the most unpleasant terrorist insurgency. It is the terrorists—not the MNF, the US, the UK or the Iraqi security forces—who are using suicide bombers to blow up streets full of women and children. They are deliberately seeking to undermine the recruitment of security personnel to the Iraqi police by means of terrorist outrages against them, and to prevent the political process from taking place. The culpability for most of the deaths lies with the terrorists.

Julian Lewis: The Foreign Secretary is clearly right to say that the Joint Intelligence Committee signed off the dossier but, as the Hutton process exposed, that dossier's language was considerably strengthened as a result of representations to the JIC made by Alastair Campbell and other spin doctors. In the light of the findings of the Iraq survey group, does the right hon. Gentleman think that the intervention by Alastair Campbell and the other spin doctors made the intelligence more accurate or less accurate?

Jack Straw: First, I believe that the role of spin doctors can be overspun. Palpably, there are many lessons to be learned from the fact that some of the intelligence turned out to be wrong, but some of the intelligence—such as that received about Iraqi missile systems—turned out to be amazingly accurate. However, I accepted the intelligence without too much inquiry because of everything else that I knew, from perfectly public sources, about the record of Saddam, who continued to defy Security Council resolutions for many years, even though he could have put himself in order. Also, as late as 7 March 2003, Dr. Blix published a 173-page report in respect of unanswered disarmament questions, in which he stated that there was a strong presumption that 10,000 litres of anthrax remained in Iraq. I am very proud of our intelligence service and I remind the hon. Gentleman that it had made very accurate judgments, on a similar intelligence base, about Libya, the A.Q. Khan network and other matters. That is why I, and the rest of us, accepted the intelligence.

Clive Soley: One of my many Iraqi constituents asked me over the weekend whether people in Britain understood that the nightmare endured by Ken Bigley's family had been a daily occurrence for families—including his own—in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. He went on to discuss with me the difficulties encountered when a body such as the UN tries to deal with a person who is a psychopathic killer and who is in breach of both the resolutions and the ceasefire. To me, that was always more important than the question of weapons of mass destruction. People like Saddam Hussein are intelligent and brutal, but also deeply unpredictable. Saddam succeeded in fooling the international community in respect of WMD, but does my right hon. Friend agree that what made him dangerous was his unpredictability?

Jack Straw: As with my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt), I wish that more people were listening to the authentic voice of Iraqis, both here and in Iraq. Life there is getting better. One Iraqi told me that Saddam was the biggest terrorist of all, and that 300,000 people, including many members of his own family, had been murdered and dumped into mass graves. My hon. Friend is also right to say that, although there might be lessons for us to learn—and there are—it is also plain that there are lessons to be learned about the UN system, and to be learned by those who did not support effective action. As I recall, in the middle of 2001—before 11 September—a number of Security Council members were willing to work with Saddam to allow the sanctions regime to degrade, even though they knew that he was in clear breach of all sorts of obligations. The UN suffered from that, as did international peace and security. I hope that the high-level group established by Kofi Annan will find a way through these difficulties and learn some lessons so that we have much better ground rules for taking decisions in the future.

Paul Marsden: I pay tribute to the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister for their personal involvement in trying to secure the safety and release of Mr. Kenneth Bigley in Iraq. I disagreed with both of them at the beginning of Mr. Bigley's ordeal, but by the end I believe that they had done everything possible to secure his freedom. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that a new international summit on Iraq, as outlined by Senator John Kerry, would be helpful in increasing the involvement of the UN?

Jack Straw: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his generous remarks, which are much appreciated. However, I hope that he will forgive me if I do not get too involved in the debates currently taking place between the two leading presidential contenders. An international conference called by Egypt is being held next week, and will involve Iraq's neighbours, the P5—the permanent five nations on the Security Council—as well as Egypt and some other countries. There is no doubt that the more we can involve the international community and get it on board in this matter, the better it will be for the Iraqis.

Llew Smith: The Butler report concluded that the allegation that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Niger was well founded, yet the ISG was unable to find any evidence to support the allegation that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from abroad in the period after Desert Storm. Which of those conclusions does the Foreign Secretary support?

Jack Straw: I simply say to my hon. Friend that that shows the difficulties faced by our intelligence services. We expect them to operate as effectively as possible but, by definition, they do not deal with established truths. They deal with fragments of information that they then have to put together to make judgments. Without their efforts, Britain would be a far less safe place and would have suffered many more terrorist outrages. To put it bluntly, people must understand that.
	The Butler committee went into these matters in great detail and I respect its judgment, although I acknowledge that the ISG's conclusion was slightly different.

Edward Garnier: May I associate myself unreservedly with the remarks made by the Foreign Secretary and my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) about the incident connected with the death of Mr. Bigley, and with the remarks that the right hon. Gentleman made about our forces in Iraq? There can be no controversy about that matter.
	I supported the Government in the Lobby in March 2003 because I believed that the Prime Minister had advanced a case for war that was based on the unvarnished truth. However, the Government's current justification for the invasion of Iraq is markedly different. Will the Foreign Secretary give me an assurance that what the Prime Minister told the House in March 2003 was based on the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Jack Straw: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for the first part of what he said, and I fully understand why Opposition Members might be tempted to raise questions about the good faith of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister or other members of the Cabinet. However, I do not believe that British politics is helped by that, or that there is any foundation for such claims. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister acted in complete good faith and there have been three separate forensic inquiries into the basis of the September dossier and much else besides. If the hon. and learned Gentleman looks at the motion put before the House on 18 March last year—the terms of which were discussed with the Opposition in advance—he will see that it was based on Saddam's breach of his Security Council obligations and on his failure to comply. That remains as true today as it was on the day when we voted for that motion.

Lynne Jones: On the issue of an attempt to procure uranium from Africa, the Iraq survey group confirms the view of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which was presented to the UN Security Council before the war, that there was no evidence to support those allegations. However, Butler, while restating the IAEA view, comes to the opposite conclusion without giving any logical argument to justify that view. Does not that call into question the credibility of the Butler report and its conclusions on that and other issues? Why was it that the Government insisted that that allegation was correct, but omitted to mention that Iraq had no need to procure uranium from Africa because it had stockpiles of the stuff?

Jack Straw: With respect, I am not entirely clear what point my hon. Friend is trying to make. If it is clear that the basis for intelligence was wrong, it has been withdrawn. I have announced two withdrawals today. Butler analysed the information with great care, including all the intelligence that formed part of the dossier. Together with his colleagues, who included two right hon. Members of this House, he reached conclusions that were his conclusions, and not the Government's. If he had come to different conclusions, we would have accepted them.
	All that this shows is the great difficulty of making cast-iron judgments in an area of intelligence. Nevertheless, people have to understand the importance of intelligence. The same intelligence services have a fantastic record of accuracy. In some of the dossiers they have worked on, such as Libya, they have been in error only in underestimating rather than overestimating the problem.

Elfyn Llwyd: On behalf of my party and my hon. Friends in the Scottish National party, I wish to associate myself fully with the condolences expressed to the Bigley family.
	Today's statement has done nothing to justify the attack on Iraq. The Foreign Secretary referred to an intention to reconstitute weapons of mass destruction and intentions to resume a chemical weapons effort. As an upholder of international law, will he now lobby the United Nations to legitimise any further attack on a state based on its perceived future intentions, as revealed ex post facto?

Jack Straw: That has never been the basis for action. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that chapter 7 of the UN charter sets out the circumstances in which the Security Council can declare a threat to international peace and security and authorise military action in that respect. I do not wish to detain the House, but I could do so with an account of the negotiating history that led to the operative paragraphs in resolution 1441 in November 2002. The hon. Gentleman and others need to look again at the motion that we put before the House, with Opposition support, on 18 March 2003. We invited the House to agree to military action overwhelmingly because of Saddam's failure to comply with Security Council resolutions. It was not to do with intelligence but with his failure to comply. That was the case then, and not a single word of the ISG report or any other confounds the conclusion that the House rightly reached on 18 March.

Ann Clwyd: I feel a great sense of outrage that the UN was corrupted by Saddam Hussein's regime. I cannot believe that any hon. Member believes that Saddam worked so hard, using money and influence, to corrupt the UN into deciding to lift the sanctions because he wanted to improve the welfare of his people. Anybody who believes that is living in a fool's paradise. I wish to ask my right hon. Friend whether we can we examine the role of France and Russia on the Security Council. It would not have been possible to obtain a second or third resolution by the Security Council, because whatever Iraq did, France and Russia would have blocked the resolution. The corruption by members of the Security Council, by officials of the UN and by the regime deserves the fullest investigation. For example, when will the oil-for-food programme investigation reach a conclusion?

Jack Straw: My hon. Friend makes some important points. She is right to say that an element of naivety existed in attitudes to Saddam. It would not have been okay if we had simply walked away, but that was the only alternative. We sought rigorous inspections, backed by the threat of military force and a clear ultimatum to use it unless Saddam complied. That is what France—leaving aside Russia—said that it would veto in any circumstances, and that meant that Saddam thought that he was off the hook, as he would have been. France and other countries would have rued the day that they allowed that to happen, because he would have emerged much stronger as a result of his degradation of the UN by beating the resolutions.
	Several inquiries are taking place, including one by the UN itself. It is important that we do not prejudge that, but on the basis of the evidence in the 1,000 pages provided by Duelfer, several individuals have a big case to answer.

Points of Order

Angus Robertson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will be aware that thousands of jobs depend on air bases at Kinloss and Lossiemouth in my Moray constituency, and that grave concern is felt about potential cuts or closure under the ongoing airfield review by the Ministry of Defence. Since last night, the media have been tipped off that an announcement was set to be made about the review process. In fact, several media representatives called me at 11.20 this morning, quoting from a letter by the Minister of State about the bases in my constituency. I only received a faxed copy of that letter an hour later and the hard copy has still to arrive on the board. Is that an appropriate way for a Department to deal with important constituency concerns, especially when hundreds if not thousands of jobs are at stake? What remedy is available to Members to ensure that such cynical media management does not continue?

Mr. Speaker: I am deeply concerned about that situation if it is true. Men and women in the hon. Gentleman's constituency are genuinely worried about their future. He and the House should be the first to know. If the media want to know, we provide passes and the facilities of the Press Gallery to them so that they can hear what Ministers have to say. I would hope that the hon. Gentleman will go to the Table Office and inquire into the situation. I hope that it is noted that I expect statements to be made to the House, not elements in the media to be tipped off, especially about matters as serious as job losses.

Gerald Howarth: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sure that the House will have welcomed your strong stand and your admonishment of the Government. May I draw to your attention the fact that the Ministry of Defence is scheduled to make several ministerial statements on the Order Paper today, but there is no reference to the future of Lossiemouth, Kinloss or any other Royal Air Force airfield?

Mr. Speaker: That is why I am so angry. I have noted that fact.

Alan Simpson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask for your guidance on whether we will have a statement on the breaches of security that took place in this House during the demonstrations by the Countryside Alliance? Are we in a position to understand precisely how members of the public were able to get into this Chamber?

Mr. Speaker: This matter is being considered by the Joint Committee on Security. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate the difficulty that I have, because security matters should not be openly discussed on the Floor of the House. The matter is being considered and I ask the hon. Gentleman to bear with me.

Ann Widdecombe: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During the statement, you will have heard my question to the Foreign Secretary about an apology to the House from the Prime Minister for a statement that proved invalid. The Foreign Secretary's response, which you will also have heard, was that the Prime Minister apologised to the Labour party conference. Is it your view, Mr. Speaker, that the House and the Labour party conference are synonymous?

Mr. Speaker: As the right hon. Lady knows, when I became Speaker the Labour party and I parted company—on perfectly good terms of course, but we parted company.

Rite of Passage (Welcoming and Coming of Age)

Frank Field: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish Civil Welcoming Ceremonies, Responsibility to Children Agreements and Coming of Age Ceremonies; to make provision as to their conduct; and for connected purposes.
	During my time in Birkenhead, my constituents have almost refashioned the way in which they see my role. Twenty-five years ago, when they first elected me to represent them in the House, most of the agenda was class politics. My constituents were concerned about whether I could help them achieve a new house, gain a welfare benefit or protect their job. That agenda has been transformed, almost beyond recognition.
	Increasingly, in place of that class politics, my constituents ask whether I can help them to stop people behaving in an uncivilised way towards them, their families and their local communities. In the 25 years I have been the Member for Birkenhead, I have witnessed the replacement of class politics by the politics of behaviour.
	There was no one point when it was clear that that transition had taken place. At first, I tried to justify gross incidents of incivility as exceptions, but I can remember the occasion 10 years ago when a group of decent working-class pensioners came to see me and I realised that politics had changed for the worse and, certainly in the short term, for good. They explained the nightmare they were living through: young lads who ran across their bungalow roofs, banged on their windows, peed through their letter boxes and jumped out of the shadows to try to give them heart attacks. They explained that the police were powerless to act to give them the sort of life that they expected. Those pensioners were the bedrock of our country. They had always worked hard and added more than they ever expected to take out, yet they found that the world in which they believed they would end their days was fast crumbling before them.
	Both the last and the current Governments have attempted to respond to that changed situation—the politics of behaviour. Almost all of us welcomed the measures that the previous Conservative Government and this Labour Government have taken. The Government are rightly concerned as to whether we can hold the line more effectively against uncivilised behaviour.
	The Bill begins to redress the balance. As well as holding the line even more effectively, we need to look at the root causes and to consider why we are increasingly surrounded by constituents who make pleas to which we can only partly respond. The very nature of politics is changing because the agenda has changed.
	In the past, we took it for granted that people's behaviour had nothing to do with politicians. We had a peaceable kingdom because families, largely, functioned to ensure that although each of their members thought they were the most important person in the world, they realised that there were three or four other people in the household who thought that, too, and that an agreement had to be struck. In coming to those agreements in our families, we were all taught the social skills that enabled us to go into the wider community and behave in almost as civilised a fashion as in our families.
	During my time as a Member, we have witnessed first a small but now, sadly, an increasing number of families who have no idea that their duty is to teach their offspring those common virtues. We have never had to deal with the issue, but now because families, supported by trade unions, Churches, friendly societies and mutual aid societies, all singing from the same hymn sheet, sadly, do not carry the weight they once did, we as politicians have to turn to that most difficult task.
	Although any politician who thinks there is a panacea for such a fundamental issue should be led quietly away, put in a dark room, given a high dosage of pills and asked to recover, that does not mean that we should not attempt to build up a more effective programme. In the next parliamentary Session, the Home Office will give us another Bill on antisocial behaviour, and I hope that my Bill gives a flavour of some of the measures that we should like to see in that Bill.
	I accept that, sadly, there is a slow walking away in this country from the role that organised religion played in the way we govern our behaviour. I do not believe that, as individuals, we have much chance of reversing that, but the Bill takes what were religious ceremonies and secularises and universalises them. It accepts that although those ceremonies were religious in intent, they also had a civic value in binding people to the wider community where they were treasured as individuals but to which they had responsibilities.
	Part of the Bill takes the idea of baptism and secularises it, not to replace baptism where it occurs but to have a ceremony that adds to it. When the British Expeditionary Force went to France in the first world war, more than 99 per cent. of our soldiers were baptised. When we sent our forces to Iraq, fewer than four in 10 were baptised.
	The Bill would provide for a ceremony that was once universal, to remind children and families that there is a wider community beyond the importance of the family. It would universalise that idea in a welcoming ceremony. In place of a hurried and unimportant entry in the registry of births, there would be a public ceremony in which we would welcome the child into the community. We would say what we want the child to achieve and set out the resources that we want, to ensure that parents can bring out the best in their child.
	Likewise, the Bill would universalise the Jewish coming of age ceremony, the Bar Mitzvah—although without the presents. It is important that all our children know that there is a point when they begin to move from childhood to adulthood, and that as they make that move, so we expect their behaviour to change from the innocence—we hope—of childhood to an awareness of the greater responsibilities of adulthood.
	No one would pretend that the Bill, even if it is embraced as enthusiastically as I hope it will be by the House, presents the panacea. However, I hope that it will do two things. First, I hope that it will give some idea of the positive measures that the Government will include in the new antisocial behaviour Bill, so that while we are more effectively holding the line against uncivilised behaviour we also look at its deep-seated root causes and prepare to deal with them.
	Secondly, to help concentrate the Government's mind on their task, I hope that, before they publish their Bill, a number of like-minded Members will introduce a much more comprehensive measure than mine, which will both hold the line, because that is what our constituents most want us to do, and look at those root causes, because they want us to do that, too. Where families have failed, politics might achieve, so I commend the Bill to the House.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Frank Field, Ross Cranston, Mrs. Ann Cryer, Ms Meg Munn, Mr. David Kidney, Mr. David Willetts, Tony Wright, Mrs. Louise Ellman, Mrs. Alice Mahon and Angela Eagle.

Rite of Passage (Welcoming and Coming of Age)

Mr. Frank Field accordingly presented a Bill to establish civil welcoming ceremonies, responsibility to children agreements and coming of age ceremonies; to make provision as to their conduct; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 15 October, and to be printed [Bill 160].

Orders of the Day
	 — 
	Civil Partnership Bill [Lords]

[Relevant document: The Fifteenth Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Session 2003–04, on the Civil Partnership Bill, HC 885.]
	Order for Second Reading read

Jacqui Smith: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	The Bill represents a historic step on what has been a long journey to respect and dignity for lesbians and gay men in Britain. It is a natural progression in our vision to build an inclusive society. As such, it builds on reforms that began back in 1967 with Leo Abse's private Member's Bill, backed by the then Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins. The Government's commitment to equality has been strong and unequivocal. We have equalised the age of consent, outlawed discrimination in the workplace on the ground of sexual orientation, secured protection from homophobic hate crimes and supported the abolition of section 28.
	In creating a new legal relationship for same-sex couples, this Bill is a sign of the Government's commitment to social justice and equality. It is also a recognition of the realities of modern Britain. Across this country today thousands of same-sex couples have made the decision to share their lives, their home, their finances and the care of their children or of older relatives. They may have loved and cared for each other for many years, yet their relationship is invisible in the eyes of the law. The Bill sends a clear message about the importance of stable and committed same-sex relationships.

John Redwood: Will the Minister recommend to the Treasury that carers, those being cared for and family members living together in their own family units should have the benefit of inheritance tax relief and capital gains tax relief?

Jacqui Smith: No, I will not. It is rather unfortunate that some Opposition Members have chosen to use an important equality Bill to pursue their campaign about inheritance tax. I will come back to some of the amendments that have been made in the Lords.
	The Bill sends a clear message about the importance of stable and committed same-sex relationships. It marks a major step in helping such couples gain greater social acceptance of their partnership and overcome the distressing consequences for many people of their legal invisibility.
	During consultation we heard and were moved by the personal stories of difficulties faced by same-sex couples precisely because they lacked a way of obtaining legal recognition of their relationship. They included terminally ill people and their partners who had to face not just the heartbreak of death and separation but the added trauma of being unable to leave a shared home or pension benefits. One man who had been involved in a major car accident was shocked to find that it was not his partner but his parents who were consulted about his medical treatment, that his partner might have faced difficulties registering his death and that although they had shared their lives he and his partner had no way of safeguarding their shared interests. Fortunately, in that instance, the parents were supportive through a difficult time, but that is not always the case.
	Another man, on the death of his partner, found himself excluded from funeral arrangements and thrown out of his home by relatives of his partner who had had no contact with him for many years. Another person had to buy the couple's joint possessions from the parents of his deceased partner. A woman was kept away from her partner's funeral. These are the inhumane consequences of the invisibility of same-sex relationships.

Angela Watkinson: The points that the Minister is making are valid, but do they not equally apply to platonic companions who share a home together and suffer equally?

Jacqui Smith: I do not believe that some of the issues that I have identified do apply. There is a particular significance to a partnership between two people who have chosen to share their home and their life, to love each other and to care for each other. I will deal with the issue of other types of carers, which I take seriously, later, but to conflate the two is to do justice neither to the same-sex couples whom the Bill seeks to serve nor to carers in the sort of relationships that the hon. Lady describes.

James Gray: The Minister describes a loving couple who have lived together for many years, sharing their house, their lives, their food. Do her arguments apply to the elderly sisters in my constituency who have lived together for 40 years and care for each other and love each other in a very real way as much as they do to lesbian couples?

Jacqui Smith: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was listening carefully when I identified the specific problem for same-sex couples—the legal invisibility of their relationship. Of course there are issues about sisters living together, but their relationship is not invisible—it is already recognised by society, and often by the law.

James Gray: No.

Jacqui Smith: The hon. Gentleman is plain wrong: of course their relationship is recognised in law.
	The Bill would allow same-sex couples security in life, peace of mind in the event of a partner's death and fair treatment should their relationship break down. It provides the opportunity to enter into a legal relationship in which rights are balanced with responsibilities and the couple's commitment is recognised in law—giving solutions to the practical problems that too many people face—and makes an important statement about this country's support for stable, long-term committed relationships. These are the marks of a civilised and humane society. They are the principles that we set out to fulfil with this Bill, yet others have sought to wreck the principles on which the Bill is founded.

Lembit �pik: Before the Minister goes into more detail, may I ask her about Northern Ireland? I understand that this is a reserved matter so, conventionally, what happens there will be determined here. The Liberal Democrats are keen to see the legislation implemented in Northern Ireland. Will the Minister give an assurance that that is the Government's intention?

Jacqui Smith: I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. It is the Government's intention that, under this Bill, not least given some of the issues that I have identified, the new legal ability to gain recognition for one's relationship will operate across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Ian Paisley: The Minister will be aware that in all political parties in Northern Ireland there is opposition to this Bill. She will also be aware that in the consultation 86 per cent. of the answers were no. Why is the Bill not going to be left until the Assembly is up and running again so that the people of Northern Ireland can make the decision themselves? [Interruption.]

Jacqui Smith: Well, Mr. Deputy Speaker

Ian Paisley: I had nothing

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am not quite sure who has finished and who is starting.

Jacqui Smith: The hon. Gentleman is right about the responses to the consultation, although I can report to the House that, as of today, we have received nearly 400 letters of support for the Bill from Northern Ireland, and there were 462 responses to the original consultation. The hon. Gentleman is wrong, therefore, to suggest that there is no support for the Bill in Northern Ireland. Given the universality of some of the issues that I have described, it makes sense to legislate, as we propose with the Bill, for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Angela Eagle: I welcome this groundbreaking Bill, but one issuesurvivor benefits in occupational pensionshas worried a lot of people. Will my right hon. Friend take another look at the Bill, because it will create an inequality of treatment between same-sex couples and married heterosexual couples in relation to survivor benefits under occupational pension schemes? Will she see whether she can iron out that manifest discrimination?

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend and other Labour Members have certainly worked very hard to raise that issue. Given that, as I have said, the Bill is about equality, I can undertake, as she asks, to look in considerable detail at the way in which we are able to provide, as we are in the vast majority of provisions in the Bill, equality in relation to survivor benefits under pension schemes, difficult though some of the issues may be.

Ann Widdecombe: The Minister has several times used the word equality. Will she be very specific? Is the equality that she seeks that whereby a homosexual relationship based on commitment is treated in future in exactly the same way as marriage in law?

Jacqui Smith: If the right hon. Lady looks at the Bill, she will see that, in the vast majority of cases, it is the Government's intention that those people who enter into a civil partnership will receive the same rights and take on the same responsibilities as those that we expect of those who enter into civil marriage.

Edward Leigh: It would surely be much fairer to Members on both sides of House if the Government came clean and announced that they support gay marriage. Why will they not do so?

Jacqui Smith: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman heard me make the important point that civil partnerships under the Bill mirror in many ways the requirements, rights and responsibilities that run alongside civil marriage. I recognise that hon. Members on both sides of the House understand and feel very strongly about specific religious connotations of marriage. The Government are taking a secular approach to resolve the specific problems of same-sex couples. As others have said, that is the appropriate and modern way for the 21st century.
	I wish to move on to the amendmentsfrankly, they are wrecking amendmentspassed in another place. Our belief, which is supported by many hon. Members on both sides of the House, is that certain amendments passed in another place render the Bill unworkable. Those amendments would allow close relatives over the age of 30 who have lived together continuously for 12 years to form civil partnerships. Of course, we recognise that there are genuine concerns about the position of carers. That is why the Government introduced the first ever national carers strategy and ensured that the carers grant that we introduced to provide vitally needed breaks is six times higher this year than it was in 1999, and it is why we supported the private Member's Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis), but this Bill is entirely the wrong place to deal with those concerns. Parents, children and siblings already have legally recognised relationships to one another that are widely acknowledged and accepted in society.
	The Opposition amendments passed in another place would also lead to myriad legal absurdities. A woman who formed a civil partnership with her grandfather would have her own mother as her stepdaughter. A grandfather could leave a survivor's pension to a civil-partner grandson. That turns pension provision on its head and could cost the taxpayer 1 billion a year and the private sector some 1.25 billion a year.

Desmond Turner: Does my right hon. Friend agree that those amendments can fairly be described as wrecking amendments, designed to prevent the Bill from becoming effective, and that they were tabled in that form by people who are afraid to come out and express their real motive, which is to oppose equality?

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend makes a fair point. As I have said, those amendments fail to recognise the principles on which the Bill is based and they will lead to some of the legal absurdities that I have outlined. I hope that all hon. Members will be honest about their real views, their real motivations and their real objectives in what they propose.

Gerald Howarth: Is the Minister seriously telling the House that three bishops who voted for the amendments so ably moved by my noble Friends in the other place were engaged in a wrecking process? If so, they and their parishioners ought to be told that.

Jacqui Smith: I was saying precisely that the effect of those amendments would be to wreck the Bill. Those who voted for them, whatever their motives, need to be aware that that would be the effect of the amendments. I was going through the legal absurdities. For example, a son in a civil partnership with his elderly mother could lose entitlement to jobseeker's allowance, based on his mother's ability to support him financially. That would take our social security system back to the 1930s. Even more bizarrely, if he then wanted to marry someone else, he would have to live separately from his mother for at least two years, or he would have to prove her unreasonable behaviour. For those reasons and many others, the amendments stand condemned by the TUC, citizens advice bureaux, the Solicitors Family Law Association, the Law Society, Stonewall and many others, but, worst of all, they stand condemned by the very people whom they purport to helpcarers. Carers UK believes that the amendments may even harm the position of carers and create new problems for them.
	The House will also be aware that those amendments have rendered me unable to declare under the Human Rights Act 1998 that the Bill is compatible with the European convention on human rights.

Charles Hendry: The Minister is being very generous with her time in giving way. Will she confirm that one of the issues for carers is that they will lose their entitlement to benefit if they register such a relationship because joint incomes will be taken into account? Some of those whom the Bill is directly designed to help would lose the most.

Jacqui Smith: The hon. Gentleman points out yet another difficulty with trying to impose an ill-thought-out wrecking process on a Bill that was intended to deal with another problem. He is absolutely right.

Rob Marris: My right hon. Friend refers to the European convention on human rights. As I understand itperhaps she will correct me if I am wrongheterosexual couples can take advantage of the Bill only if they are aged 30 and have been in a relationship for 12 years. If so, does that not breach the European convention on human rights, as it is discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation?

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend is right. That is precisely one of the reasons that make the Bill in the amended form incompatible with the convention. For all those reasons and many more, we will seek to reverse those amendments and restore the Bill to its original purpose.

Chris Bryant: Is not the truth of the matter that those who tabled those amendments in the other Chamber did so because they do not believe that homosexuals are equal to heterosexuals, and that, unfortunately, that includes many of the bishops?

Jacqui Smith: As I suggested earlier, I hope that people will be honest about their motivation todayI suspect that my hon. Friend is right about some people's motivation.
	I acknowledge concerns expressed by hon. Members and those in another place about the vulnerable position of unmarried opposite-sex couples, many of whom are under the misapprehension that they enjoy more rights than they actually do. That is the very reason why the Department for Constitutional Affairs is running a campaign to inform cohabitants of the significant differences between their rights and responsibilities and those of married couples. We agree that there are aspects on which all couples who live together need protection, especially those with children. That is not a matter for the Bill, but the Government are mindful of the issue, which is why we recently asked the Law Commission to carry out a project on cohabitation for inclusion in its ninth programme of law reform.

Christopher Chope: The Minister will be aware that page 12 of the report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights referred to the undertaking that the Government have given, but said that it did not go far enough and asked for more information. What information have the Government provided in response to paragraph 26 of the report?

Jacqui Smith: I have replied at length to the specific issues raised by the Joint Committee and I am sure that it will have ample opportunity to consider my responses. The Bill will provide the same opportunity for same-sex couples to gain legal recognition of their relationship as currently exists for opposite-sex couples through the route of marriage. That does not mean that all same-sex couples will choose to enter into that arrangement, just as not all opposite-sex couples choose to marry. However, same-sex couples currently have no route of legal recognition, so the Bill will put that right.
	I shall now turn to the detail of the Bill. Part 1 defines civil partnership and makes the point at which a civil partnership is formed and ends clear. It makes it clear that a civil partnership may be formed in the UK, or overseas under UK law, and that same-sex relationships that are registered under the law of another country may be treated as civil partnerships under UK law. Part 5 provides a way of identifying those overseas relationships that can be treated as civil partnerships, and deals with the jurisdiction of UK courts in overseas cases and the recognition of orders made by courts abroad.
	Part 2 sets out the procedure for forming and terminating a civil partnership in England and Wales and some of the rights and responsibilities that will flow from that relationship. The rights and responsibilities are serious, so entering a civil partnership will represent a major commitment. The registration process will be delivered by the local registration service, and there will be a formal, court-based process for dissolution if a civil partnership breaks down. That process would involve both rights and responsibilities for the civil partners involved. The provisions will ensure that civil partnerships are entered into seriously, that they cannot be exited lightly and that the rights and responsibilities that same-sex couples are given support them in their lives together.

Pete Wishart: Does the Minister share my disappointment that the Scottish Parliament is not considering the Bill, despite the fact that it has the competence to do so? There are differences involving dissolution and registration in the Scots courts. Is it the case that the Scottish Parliament is afraid to deal with the issue and is thus happy to let the Government pass legislation on its behalf?

Jacqui Smith: I completely disagree with the hon. Gentleman. As we consider the Bill in more detail, I have no doubt that any hon. Member who so wishes will be able to examine the detail of how we are responding to the specific nature of Scots and Northern Irish law. However, both legislatively and for the people who will be affected, it makes sense to legislate through one Bill because of its complex legal implications.

David Cairns: Further to the point made by the hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart), surely the situation illustrates the grown-up nature of the devolution settlement. The Scottish Parliament and Executive indicated well in advance their intention to pass a Sewel motion if the Bill was to their satisfaction. That allows Scottish Members, such the hon. Gentleman and me, to participate in the debate in the knowledge that the Bill will be applied in Scotland, although it might seem on the face of it that the debate relates to England and Wales. We should celebrate the situation as a success of devolution, rather than criticising it.

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend is right. The Labour party has a grown-up approach, and I hope that all parties will adopt that approach.
	After going through the process, same-sex couples' relationships will no longer be invisible and their duties and obligations to each other as civil partners will be significant. They will have responsibilities during their relationship, during the dissolution of their relationshipshould that be necessaryand on the death of a civil partner. The provisions span registration, dissolution, property and financial provisions, measures to protect the interests of children and amendments to intestacy rules. They will directly resolve many of the problems that same-sex couples face, including issues of housing and tenancy, domestic violence and fatal accident claims.
	Parts 3 and 4 deal with provisions relating to Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively. Although there are differences between the provisions for civil partnership in parts 2, 3 and 4, most of the differences are procedural and reflect distinct legislative history and legal systems. As we have heard, the Scottish Parliament has debated a Sewel motion and agreed that Scottish provisions should be included in the Bill.
	Part 6 ensures that references to certain familial relationships in legislation, such as step relations, can be read as including relationships that arise through a civil partnership. Parts 7 and 8 deal with several discrete areas of legislation that must be amended to reflect the existence of the new legal relationship of a civil partner. For example, schedule 24 will ensure that income-related benefits rules treat same-sex couples in the same way as opposite-sex couples. Child support rules will assess civil partners in the same way as married people, and civil partners will be entitled to most state pension benefits from the date of commencement of the Bill. The Bill also contains powers to require that pension benefits provided to married people are made available to civil partners from the date of the Bill's commencement, notwithstanding the commitment that I made earlier.
	I must inform the House that the Government will move several amendments during the Bill's passage through this House. Most of them will be minor and I will write to hon. Members with detailed explanations of them. The great majority were tabled for consideration in the other place, but because of the impact on the Bill of the amendments passed on Report, which would fundamentally change the nature of civil partnerships, it was impossible for us to proceed with them.

Alan Duncan: Will the Minister clarify the reference that she made earlier to survivor benefits? Is she saying categorically today that equal rights will be retrospectively applied for public sector pensions?

Jacqui Smith: I made a comment at the behest of my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle). She and other hon. Members have rightly emphasised the Bill's objectives on equality and the possible inequality that could arise with survivor benefits under pensions. I undertook to examine her representations and those of others in more detail.
	The Bill has commanded widespread support and I would like to offer the House just two examples of that. A fortnight ago, I was able to visit the registration department of Brighton and Hove city council. It opened a pink wedding waiting list in July and people came from all over the country and queued around the block to express their personal wishes to register their relationships and support the Bill. I commend Brighton for that initiative.

Chris Bryant: I join the Minister in commending Brighton, but what will happen if a council such as Kent county council, a Conservative council that has reintroduced its version of clause 28, chooses not to co-operate?

Jacqui Smith: The Bill makes clear the process that registration authorities will need to put in place to ensure that civil partners have the opportunity to have that civil partnership recognised.
	Support has also come from across the political spectrum. In November last year, a leader in The Daily Telegraph said:
	The time has come to give homosexual couples some legal recognition . . . It is perverse that existing law should actively discourage any two people in a lifelong relationship from enjoying legal and financial security . . . Allowing gay people to affirm their relationship within a civil contract does not undermine the institution of marriage. It might even reinforce it.
	I do not often agree with The Daily Telegraph, but I do in this respect. The support recognises that the Bill offers a reasonable and principled solution to the disadvantages that same-sex couples face because they cannot gain legal recognition of their relationships. Amendments passed in another place do not weaken our resolve to see the end of that unfair treatment and exclusion.
	The Bill sends a clear and unequivocal message that same-sex couples deserve recognition and respect. It is a crucial step on the road to a fair and inclusive society, and I look forward to the House restoring it to its original purpose. I commend it to the House.

Alan Duncan: I thank the Minister for her opening remarks and explanation of the Bill. It is a pleasure for me to give it my personal support and to do so on behalf of my party from the Front Bench.

Gerald Howarth: I well recognise that my hon. Friend speaks in a personal capacity and from the Front Bench, but I take it that he is not speaking on behalf of the entire Conservative party.

Alan Duncan: My hon. Friend should show a little patience. My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition has stated openly many times that he supports civil partnerships and will vote for their introduction. I am pleased to repeat and share that commitment. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) rightly and forcefully points out, Conservative Members have a free vote. The Bill is not whipped. It is up to my hon. Friends to vote as they choose, from the position of principle that they will undoubtedly argue, although I am confident that a large number will share my view that supporting the Bill provides a timely opportunity to show that the party understands the world in which we live and that, as my right hon. and learned Friend the leader of the party has said, we are a party for all Britain and for all Britons.

Ann Widdecombe: Will my hon. Friend clarify, in the same way as the Minister didI have to say with some honestythat the Bill is actually about homosexual marriage?

Alan Duncan: I do not accept that, but I will try to clarify the situation. In anticipation of my right hon. Friend's assessment of the Bill, I intend to devote a lot of time to answering that question, which it is fair and reasonable to ask. I hope that I might even be able to allay her concerns to the extent that she might approach the Bill differently.

Ann Widdecombe: I do not think so.

Alan Duncan: I live in hope.
	The demand for the Bill is far greater than many people realise. One of the facts about people's attitudes to gay people in the modern world is that essentially they are relaxedutterly unexercisedabout the phenomenon until the time when which they detect intolerance, at which point they become deeply and profoundly indignant. That is the climate in which the Bill is sought, not just by those who benefit from it, but by those who see the benefits it confers on others. It has much wider support than from those who are directly affected by it.
	In passing, perhaps the Minister will confirm in the wind-ups that there is no danger, as highlighted in the report in The Independent on Sunday, that the passage of the Bill is under threat from the compression of time as we reach the end of the Session. I do not think that that many amendments will be tabled in Committee.

Christopher Chope: Does my hon. Friend think it reasonable that the Committee will have only two days to discuss this detailed Bill, plus all the Government amendments?

Alan Duncan: I thought for a moment my hon. Friend said two gays in Committee.

Chris Bryant: Take a roll-call.

Alan Duncan: Indeed.
	I am not aware of how many days are proposed for the Committee, but I am sure that that will be discussed by the usual channels. I am sure that the Committee stage will be extended appropriately if amendments are tabled so that the Bill can be properly discussed.
	I shall deal first with the Bill as the Government introduced it in another place, before turning to the amendments passed there. The need for the Bill is obvious to anyone who has seen and felt some of the heart-rending injustices that can occur when a committed gay couple are denied the basic rights that a married heterosexual couple would take for granted. Despite sharing their lives together, too many of these people find that their mutual love and commitment count for absolutely nothing in the eyes of the law. As the Minister mentioned, practical matters such as pension rights and financial issues are on one side, but more serious still are casessadly, all too commonin which the partner of a terminally ill patient is denied the right to make key medical decisions, or even the right to visit the ill person. On death, the surviving partner can be crippled by inheritance tax and evicted from the home they have both shared for years.
	To illustrate that I shall quote just one of the examples, which is vivid, contained in a briefing from Stonewall. It says:
	Rex is 76. His partner, John, died after they had spent 45 years together. Their house was in both names and John left everything to Rex in his will. Rex faced a huge tax bill in order to be able to stay in his own home. He also lost John's pension. Had he been married to a woman for just one day, no tax would have been payable, and Rex would have had a survivor's pension.
	I hope that those reasons alone are enough to convince hon. Members that the Bill is needed.

Rob Marris: Do the hon. Gentleman and his Front-Bench colleagues support, as I and many of my colleagues do, retrospective survivorship benefits on pension schemes for registered gay couples?

Alan Duncan: We will consider that in Committee. I am not clear about the likely cost. If it is minimal, the public sector might give serious consideration to retrospectivity. Shifting actuarial calculations is much more difficult in personal and private schemes because other people in a similar scheme could be disadvantaged by the retrospectivity applied to same-sex couples. That needs to be discussed properly in Committee in a responsible way.
	Gay men and women are a fact of life in our country, in our communities and in the House. There are some who wish it were not so, but it is. Gay couples live together in committed relationships across the land and are accepted as couples by their friends and families. The Bill's purpose is to say that continuing to use the law to penalise them cannot be justified. It is designed to recognise same-sex relationships while applying the same restrictions as marriage regarding consanguinitythe bloodline linksthereby excluding partnerships between son and father, daughter and mother, siblings and so on. It is also designed, as the Minister saidI share her viewto apply equally across the country, so as to leave no pockets of discrimination within our United Kingdom, and to avoid the absurdity of people rushing from Gretna Green or Belfast to avoid it.
	Civil partnerships have already been introduced in different forms around the world. Denmark introduced the first registration scheme in 1989. Today, eight EU members have some form of civil partnership, as do Norway, Iceland, Canada, Australia and some states of the United States. All have recognised the need for such provisions and have legislated for them.
	One argument, brought up by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), is that civil partnerships create gay marriage and thus damage and undermine the institution of marriage. Some may see it that way; the House may wish to see it otherwise. First, although there are of course many similarities between the two institutions, they remain distinct in several important respects. While marriage is an ancient institution with special religious significance, civil partnership is a secular legal arrangement. That difference is made clear in the drafting of the Bill. Registration is given effect by the signing of the register rather than by the verbal affirmation, and a religious service is specifically banned during the signing of the register; in both such important respects, civil partnership is very different from marriage.
	Even taking into account the elements of the proposed partnerships that are similar to marriage, the argument that they will damage the institution of marriage still does not stack up. If we preach that the values inherent in marriagelove, mutual commitment and responsibilitystrengthen and enrich society, how can we claim that the replication of such values for gay couples will cause damage? Imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery.
	True, the two institutions are designed on similar lines, but they are designed on parallel lines; and parallel lines, as we all know, never meet. They are separate institutions for different groups of people. Gay men and lesbians are different precisely because of who they love, so the formal recognition of that love will itself create differences. One can therefore argue strongly that the Bill does not undermine or compete with marriage. After all, we are not exactly fishing in the same pool.
	Many practical issues will need to be dealt with as civil partnerships become accepted. For example, what does one call one's civil partner? It is a problem of modern manners that the term partner has many meanings these days: it can mean a business partner, a casual boyfriend, a girlfriend, or someone in a longer-term relationship. As developments take place, we may well find that we need to find new etiquette and new manners to enable us, in our changing civil society, to describe others in a form that makes people comfortable. I invite hon. Members to try to think of an appropriate word. As a prize, I offer a bottle of pink champagne. [Laughter.]

Edward Leigh: I disagree with my hon. Friend. He supports the creation of an institution that is formalised in a register office, has all the attributes of marriage and can be terminated only by a form of divorce. Marriage does not need to be a Christian contract; it can be carried out in a register office, just like the proposed partnerships. Why will he not simply be honest and say that what we are creating is a form of gay marriage? He is entitled to that view, and he should be honest about it.

Alan Duncan: The honesty emerges from a clear difference in respect for religious institutions. If we were forcing partnerships on a Church or religious institution, my hon. Friend would have a valid argument that they would conflict with what is now regarded primarily as a religious or religiously blessed institution. It is up to Churches, not up to Parliament, to decide what happens in future, but the clear distinction between a civil secular partnership and the institution of marriage will, in my view, be preserved. If my hon. Friend does not agree, he can vote against the Bill.

Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech. In fact, the Bill prohibits Churches from taking such a step, despite the fact that many lesbian and gay Christians and ministers might want to do so.

Alan Duncan: It is up to the Church. Yes, the Bill prohibits any sort of ceremony for the purpose of these partnerships in a religious institution. By the way, the Bill is flawed in that respect: it refers to any religious institution so designed, but on Charing Cross road there is a gay club in an old churcha building designed as a religious institution. That might have to be dealt with in Committee. However, I repeat that it is for the Church to decide. That reinforces the point that I made in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough: the Bill establishes a clear distinction between secular civil partnership and the existing institution of marriage.

Paul Goodman: I am following my hon. Friend's argument about parallel lines with great interest. If one accepts that that argument is correct, does it not follow that heterosexual couples who do not want to marry might feel that the terms of the Bill unreasonably exclude them from entering into a civil partnership?

Alan Duncan: The answer is clearly no, because such couples have the option of marriage, in either a church or a register office, and under the law as it stands they can use other legal means to register their interdependency, so to apply civil partnerships to such couples would undermine marriage. That is why such a provision should not be made in the Bill.

Ann Widdecombe: I, too, have been following my hon. Friend's parallel lines with great interest. Citing the religiosity of the institution, he makes a distinction between marriage and the proposed partnerships, but what is the distinction under the Bill between a civil marriage carried out in a register office and a civil partnership? Will he admit that there is none?

Alan Duncan: No. I admit that there is not a massive difference, except in terms of the ceremony itself: in marriage, the verbal vow is the contract, whereas in a civil partnership it is the written signature. In that sense, there is a legal distinction. Although I want to stick religiouslyif I can put it that wayto the geometry of my parallel lines, I acknowledge that they appear to get ever so slightly closer together in that respect.

David Cairns: The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. Earlier, he read out a long list of countries that have civil partnerships, some of which have had them for years. Has his research revealed any shred of evidence that the existence of partnerships has in any way undermined heterosexual marriage?

Alan Duncan: In my personal view, no. In many respects, their creation has introduced in those countries' societies a degree of stability that is currently prohibited in ours by the law as it stands.

Martin Smyth: The hon. Gentleman said that consanguinity is applicable in civil partnerships as it is in marriage. Why, when the partnerships signify a secular relationship but the degree of prohibition comes from religious teaching?

Alan Duncan: Because the proposed partnerships are a recognition of loving couples in stable relationships, not an endorsement of incestsomething that I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not want to see in any legislation. I shall address those points when I discuss the amendments made in another place.
	Concern is frequently expressed that civil partnerships will undermine the family. Let us consider those arguments. Today's families come in many shapes and sizes and people face many challenges. Marriages break up, parents remarry and the structure of the family changes. Many families no longer fit perfectly into the traditional two-parents-and-2.4-children framework, but are extended families in which there has been remarriage and same-sex relationships. The latter are increasingly acknowledged and accepted, even by grandparents, who 25 years ago would have found such relationships abhorrent. No one suggests that the absence of traditional arrangements within those new family units has led to the absence of bonds of loyalty, commitment and support that hold families together. Despite the difficulties of modern life, those values have shown a reassuring durability.

Gerald Howarth: I must challenge my hon. Friend on that point. All the Office for National Statistics surveys illustrate that children brought up in a married household do better than those brought up in a cohabiting household, let alone in a homosexual household. The question that my hon. Friend has to answerI am sure that he will do so elegantly, if not persuasivelyis, is he not setting up yet another alternative lifestyle, which young people will consider equally valid, and will not the nuclear family be destroyed?

Alan Duncan: What the Bill does is recognise what already is, and it tries to introduce a measure of permanence and stability into those relationships. I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend that a mother and a father together in a happy marriage are the best forum in which to bring up children, but I disagree with his suggestion that the Bill undermines that in any way. I do not think that it does.

Pete Wishart: I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman's speech. May I contrast it with some of the clarion calls from Conservative Back Benchers, which confirm the view that theirs is very much the nasty party? What does he say in response to the illiberal and intolerant attitude that has been demonstrated by some of his hon. Friends?

Alan Duncan: I say simply that the hon. Gentleman is wrong. We should dignify the House by accepting one another's differences in a proper way that puts arguments in an honest and direct context, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) does on so many issues, many of which I do not find myself in agreement with. There we are. Difference in the House, as a form of democracy, should be respected.
	Let me follow on from what has been said. The fact that the bonds of relationships have endured is due in no small measure to the way in which our predecessors in the House have adapted the law to allow it to keep pace with social change. We have seen reforms of property rights, tax arrangements, divorce law and child care, which have all played their part. We have always accepted that ordered change is the best way to conserve those things that we value. The issues of child care and work-life balance are a growing item on the political agenda and are becoming increasingly important.
	Measures such as those before us today are a way of protecting the family in changed times, not of damaging it. As I have said, gay couples are a fact of life. Rather than ignoring their existence, perhaps the House can now take a positive stance on their position in society.
	I am sure that the issue of child care, which often causes strong feelings, will arise during the debate. It will be argued, rightly, that the best environment for bringing up a child is with two loving, married parents. However, that is not always possible, for a host of reasons, and children are now raised in many different circumstances. What is most important is that love is given to the child and that there is stability in his or her home life.
	We had these debates at length two years ago during the passage of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which legalised joint adoption by gay couples. I openly admitthe Minister was the judge of thisthat even I was not entirely comfortable with the concept for a number of reasons. I was largely undecided. I had some qualms about whether it was the right way in which to proceed, but we passed the legislation. In many ways, that was a far more emotive issue than the one that we are discussing today. Having passed such measures into law, it makes even more sense now to approve civil partnerships. If we are concerned that children should be brought up by a stable, loving couple, these measures, when seen in conjunction with gay adoption, make a positive contribution to the family, rather than detract from it.
	There is much in the Bill that I believe can be seen as deriving from the values in which Conservatives believe. It promotes responsibility and removes the intrusive hand of the state from people's personal relationships. As a whole, the Conservative party has always been welcoming of people from different backgrounds, and does not pigeonhole people from different backgrounds. It does not pigeonhole people into restrictive categories. I may be the first openly gay Conservative Member, but history will show that gay men and women have played leading roles in our party for many years, and I am pleased to say that many are among our candidates in winnable seats at the next election. So I do not accept that the Bill is in some way incompatible with conservatism. I personally welcome the measure, but it is up to my right hon. and hon. Friends to decide how they wish to vote.
	I shall deal with the concerns that exist over the consideration of the Bill in another place and the amendments that were passed there. I begin from the basis that although the issues of discrimination and unfairness which the original Bill was aimed at tackling are, in my view, the most widespreadin many ways they are damaging and perniciousthey are sadly not the only ones that exist. Other groups are still disadvantaged, and the Bill as introduced does not, or did not, assist them.
	It is profoundly unfair that carers and siblings who cohabit are disadvantaged on the death of one or other of them by being forced out of their home by their tenancy terms or by the burden of inheritance tax. So it was right for these issues to be raised in debate, and in doing so the plight of those who are disadvantaged in this way has been drawn to a wider audience. That is one of the purposes of our parliamentary system of scrutiny, and I am glad that the efforts and effective advocacy of colleagues in another place resulted in the Government promisingthey did so, and I remind the Minister of thisto take further action to address these issues.
	In another place, the Minister of State at the Home Office, Baroness Scotland, said in Grand Committee:
	I shall certainly undertake . . . to give the House the more mature reflection of the Government in relation to how to respond to that issue.
	That is, the issue of siblings and carers. The Minister then said that
	these issues have percolated to the top of the discussions on a number of occasions. They are issues with which the Government have grappled and they will wish to continue to do so.[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 May 2004; Vol. 661, c. GC31.]
	As they have now had since May to grapple and to percolate, I look to the Government, as I think all Opposition Members do, to fulfil that undertaking. I seek a clear guarantee from the Minister of State of the Government's firm intent to bring forward measures to address these issues at an early opportunity.

Angela Eagle: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is highly inappropriate, regardless of the merits of argument about home sharers, to think that the solution somehow lies in civil partnership arrangements? Will he be voting to take out the provisions in section 2(1) and schedule 1, which so disfigure the Bill?

Alan Duncan: The hon. Lady's timing is impeccable. I was coming on to that issue and I can assure her that I think she is right. I accept that the Bill was not the appropriate vehicle for such action. When those in another place supported the Back-Bench amendment to widen the scope of the Bill, I believe that they did so with good intent. However, in doing so they fundamentally changed the Bill's nature and effect. They created a Bill that is at best bad legislation, and at worst unworkable and damaging.
	As the Minister has said, the Carers Association has stated its opposition to the changes made in the other place, stating:
	We foresee many potential negative impacts
	I think that this is the same quote
	on the cared for person and the carer with the amendments to the Bill . . . The changes could have a devastating impact on the income of the carer and the person for whom they care.
	So we are not doing a favour to carers if we move an amendment about carers that they do not want.
	As the Minister said, many other anomalies and rather absurd unintended consequences arise. For example, a woman who formed a civil partnershipthe Minister said with her grandfather, but I can equally say with her grandmotherwould, following the amendment, have her own mother as a stepdaughter. That is clearly absurd and unworkable. On a more serious point, by allowing the degrees of prohibitive blood relationships within the existing family to be breachedI hope that this is persuasive to my right hon. and hon. Friendsto form a partnership with one another, the amendment does a great deal to destabilise and compromise the traditional family unit.
	Their Lordships' amendment destroys what it sets out to protect. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has said in a letter to people who have written to him on this issue, if
	two sisters were to register their partnership, they would have to pool all their assets. If later on, one of them wanted to get married, the only way they would be able to terminate this partnership would be through complicated legal proceedings.
	That would be divorce. Imagine Doris and Violet, aged 80, going through a divorce. All that they would really need would be inheritance tax deferral so that one partner would not have to sell their home when the other dies.
	Whatever the good intent, the Bill, as amended in another place, is now unworkable. The impression has been given that the Conservative party has sought to wreck the creation of civil partnerships, which I can assure the House is certainly not the case. That is why my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has said explicitly that he would like to see the amendment reserved[Interruption.]reversed. I can give that guarantee. We have a free vote, but I am confident that that is likely to happen.
	I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to use the time that we have available during the debate to discuss other issues of detail, of which there are many. The issues of carers and siblings deserve their own bespoke legislation. If right hon. and hon. Members want to advance this cause, I hope that they will join me in demanding that the Government bring forward any such Bills at an early opportunity. I hope also that the Minister will now withdraw her rather abrupt refusal to do so in response to the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). In a sense, what she said starkly contradicts the comments of Baroness Scotland in another place.
	The Bill is not, as some have argued, about giving an extra set of rights to gay couples and thereby discriminating against other couples. On the contrary, it is about removing a discrimination that already exists in law against them. For this reason, it is a case not of greater state intrusion, but of less intrusion, which is to be welcomed. As far as I am concerned, the duty of the state is to intervene where two people are hurting each other and not where two people just happen to love each other. As a Conservative, I believe in encouraging committed long-term relationships that strengthen society. That is one of the best reasons that I can give for supporting the Bill.
	For too long there has been perpetuated a negative stereotype of gay love as less committed, less stable and less valid than that between heterosexuals. That has been at the root of much homophobia, and has been used by otherwise rational people to argue for the retention of discrimination. I am not homophobic, they say, but gay people are promiscuous and do not want long-term relationships. That argument is not only insulting but inconsistent. How can people argue, as the Christian Institute does, that the proposals
	create a counterfeit moral standard that is imposed on all
	while also claiming that there is no demand for them? If we refer to our personal experience, I suspect that most of us can see at once how wrong that contention is. Most of us know at least one gay couple who live together in a loving, committed relationship. Many of us also know of at least one heterosexual couple whose relationship may not be so healthy or committed. The simple fact is that love comes in many forms, and so do the relationships that give expression to that love. It would be odd indeed if those who espouse and defend traditional values of commitment and faithfulness opposed giving gay couples the choice to live their lives according to those values. There is a long way to go in eroding the homophobia that still exists in certain places in Britain today. Gay people still face many barriers to full acceptance, but eliminating discrimination from our laws is an essential first step to eliminating discrimination from our hearts and minds.

Barbara Roche: It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), whose speech was most elegant and, more importantly, tremendously moving. The whole House, whatever the position of individual Members, will treat it with great respect, and I congratulate him on it.
	Seven years ago, I went to a beautiful summer wedding with my husband and daughter. I love weddingsit is like seeing a Shakespeare play performed with a different castand attend them with great anticipation. On that lovely day, we were all very pleased for the happy couple. Like anyone who is married, I remembered my own wedding, now some 27 years ago, and recalled the emotions, the commitment and the shared responsibilities that I embraced on that occasion. I turned to a friend who was sitting beside me at the ceremony and talked about that. She is in a long-standing lesbian relationship. We were all enjoying the lovely occasion, but she told me that the possibility of a commitment to her long-standing partner in which rights and responsibilities were exchanged was not open to her. That made a great impression on me, and I discussed it with my family and friends afterwards. I vowed that if I ever had the opportunity to do something about it, I would. I was therefore pleased to have had the opportunity in December 2002, when I was a Minister, to say that civil partnerships for same-sex couples were a good thing.
	Before I made that announcement, there was a great deal of nervousness in government about what would happen, how people would react and what they would say. Would the heavens fall in? However, I made the announcement and that did not happenlife went on as before, and society did not appear to have suffered any disruption. Almost as soon as I made the announcement, my offices in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and in my constituency received many messages of support from people who had been in same-sex relationships for years. They loved and cared for one another in sickness and in health, but had never had the opportunity to register their relationship and enjoy the rights that many of us take for granted.
	The proposed legislation, which I warmly support, is important for two reasons. First, it deals with equality and social justice. It gives people in loving relationships an opportunity to register those relationships. There will no longer be terrible cases of people who are in dire straits at times of great sickness or bereavement being denied access to their partner. Secondly, it will show that our country has grown up and come of age. We have heard about the great reforms of the 1960s, but those reforms decriminalised homosexuality and did not deal with acceptance. They did not achieve equality and social justice, but the Civil Partnership Bill will change that. It is therefore right to look at the Bill's approach to rights and responsibilities.
	Make no mistakewe are doing something of fundamental significance for equality and the society in which I want my daughter to grow up. We must treat people with respect and compassion, which means that we must go even further than we are going today. If, for example, the Bill is enacted, as I am certain that it will be, and the first civil partnership registration takes place, the happy couple may decide to go on holiday to celebrate. The holiday company, however, may refuse to accept their booking because they are a same-sex couple. Most people in the House would be outraged by such behaviour, but the practice is not outlawed. People cannot be discriminated against at work, from nine to five or whatever hours they work, on the grounds that they are gay, lesbian or bisexual. After five o'clock, however, if they go to the pub with their friends they could be refused a drink. Until very recently, a well-known holiday company, Sandals, which offers Caribbean holidays, overtly prevented same-sex couples from going on some of their holidays. It has now reversed its position following pressure, but discrimination is still possible under the law. It has changed its policy, but there is nothing to prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbians on the ground of sexual orientation in the provision of goods and services.
	If this House truly wants to show that it has come of age, it should move to outlaw discrimination on the ground of sexuality in the provision of goods and services. That is long overdue and we should resolve to take action as quickly as possible.
	In all the campaigning on this issue, the speeches and articles that have been written and the questions that have been asked in this place and elsewhere, one organisation has campaigned particularly hardStonewall. I congratulate it on the way in which it has conducted its campaign. It is perhaps one of the best lobbying organisations in this country, and it is known to hon. Members in all parts of the House. It conducts its lobbying and campaigning in an exemplary way, but operates on a shoestring. It is amazing that it manages to do what it does. As we deliberate on this Bill, we should recognise that we owe a great deal to that organisation and to the people who have worked with it, campaigned with it and supported it.
	We often assume in this House that it is we as Members of Parliament who have brought about legislation, but that is not the case. We also owe a great debt to the civil servants and officials who have spent months, if not years, putting everything together. From personal experience, I know that there is a devoted team of officials in the women and equality unit who have pioneered this legislation. In particular, one of them is a woman who has dedicated her life over the past couple of years to ensuring that it is introduced. I thank those people very much indeed. For them, this has been not a 9 to 5 job, but a life's work ensuring that we get the legislation that is so important.
	I am grateful for having had the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I know that many important speeches will be made. I believe that we are doing something very important today that other parliamentarians will look back on in future years, and say, I wish I could have been here then. Our Parliament has grown up, our country is growing up and we truly are striving for a society that is equal and in which there is social justice.

Alistair Carmichael: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), who did a great deal while she was in government to promote and pursue this agenda. I agree with her remarks about the need for equality of access to goods and services, although she may accept, as I understood her to do on the Today programme this morning, that this Bill is not the appropriate place for that. I wish to place on record my admiration for the manner in which both the Minister and the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) conducted themselves. They both made comprehensive and compelling contributions. In particular, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton made what I consider to be the best speech that I have heard from the Conservative Front Bench since I entered Parliament. Before hon. Members rush to accuse me of damning him with faint praise, I assure him that my comments are sincerely and warmly intended as a compliment.
	The Liberal Democrats are pleased to give the Bill a warm and unequivocal welcome. We see it as an opportunity to offer the same rights and opportunities to people in same-sex relationships as are currently offered to people in civil marriages of mixed sex. It is an opportunity to offer fair and equal treatment to all in our society today, regardless of their sexual orientation. For us, the question on this Bill is not so much how we can support it as how we could not do so.
	As the first Scot to contribute, I wish to say that I thought that the intervention of the hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) was remarkable. I was astonished to hear a member of the Scottish National party talk down the Scottish Parliament as he did. Indeed, he should be awareI am astonished that he does not seem to be aware of thisthat the Justice 2 Committee of the Scottish Parliament discussed the Bill at length and produced an excellent report. Many of the concerns were taken on board by the Scottish Executive, which responded positively, and were well on their way to being included in the Bill as amendments in another place before Baroness O'Cathain did her work. I am confident that we shall see them back in Committee.

Pete Wishart: I am staggered by what I understand the hon. Gentleman to be saying. I intervened earlier to say that the Scottish Parliament is fully competent to deal with this issue. It could have dealt with the specific points in Scots law that arise. It chose not to do so because of the fear of controversy; it was like passing the buck back down to Westminster. The Scottish Parliament could have dealt with the matter and it should have done so, and the legislation would have been better as a result.

Alistair Carmichael: Time will tell just how good or ill the legislation is. The hon. Gentleman ignores the fact that the Scottish Parliament has already considered the provisions in detail, so it is not a question of running scared. Whether he likes it or not, he must recognise that there is a clear confluence of interest on many aspects of the Bill that have UK-wide application and involve Scotland. For him to suggest that the matter is better undertaken with a piecemeal approach is verging on the absurd. [Interruption.] Does he wish to intervene again, or is he happy to chunter away from a sedentary position?
	The Minister and the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton cited a number of examplesI am sure that many others will deal with such casesin which, after the death of a partner in a same-sex relationship, the surviving partner is frozen out of everything from the funeral arrangements to the disposal of the family home and other items of the deceased's estate. The treatment of the survivor in a range of other ways is discriminatory and wrong and the Bill provides the tool for ending that discrimination.
	The Minister referred to the progress of legislation on equality that started with Roy Jenkins in the 1960s. She will also recognise that this Bill in particular is the result of a process that started two years ago with the private Member's Bill introduced in the other place by my noble and learned Friend Lord Lester. I wish to place on record my admiration and appreciation of the work that he has done to get this issue on to the political agenda. It is also to the credit of the Government, whom I have not been slow to criticise on occasion for being timid in tackling difficult and challenging political issues, that they are seeing this work to a conclusion. It would be churlishI try not to be churlish, Madam Deputy Speakernot to recognise the courage that the Minister and the Government have displayed.
	The Liberal Democrats are, however, not uncritical of the Bill as it stands. The provisions that seek to create categories of civil partners other than same-sex couples, worthy though they may be, do not belong in this Bill, and they should be removed. When the Government table amendments in Committee to remove those provisions, the Minister will have the support of its Liberal Democrat members. On that issue, we are at one with the Government.
	Notwithstanding the Minister's warm words, I fear that we will not achieve a similar consensus on the Bill's provisions on pension entitlement for surviving partners. It makes no sense to undertake an exercise such as this Bill to remedy injustice, unfairness and unequal treatment, only to enshrine injustice, unfairness and unequal treatment in the new law. The Bill will allow same-sex partners to accrue survivor's pensions in public sector schemes from the date of its enactment, which will probably be some time next year.

Chris Bryant: I wholly agree with the hon. Gentleman's direction, but his last remark is entirely inaccurate because the Bill does not say anything of the sort. The Bill allows the Government to do what they want on pension provision for surviving partners, and given what we have heard this afternoon, I hope that the Government move in that direction. However, he is wrong to say that the Bill prevents the Government from providing pensions for surviving partners on the basis of parity with spouses.

Alistair Carmichael: If we examine the outcomes, they amount to much the same thing, and the hon. Gentleman is harsh in saying that I am wholly inaccurate. The matter may require further textual analysis, in which I will be happy to indulge in Committee. Given what the Minister said today and what Ministers said in the other place, however, my point is that the Government intend not to afford survivors of civil partnerships equal treatment on pensions.

Angela Eagle: Following my earlier intervention, the Minister indicated that the Government are re-examining the matter, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman welcomes that reply.

Alistair Carmichael: I welcome that reply. I hope that I have not become cynical after three and a half years in this place, but I have seen other Ministers get through Second Reading debates in which a tricky issue is causing disquiet among Government Back Benchers by promising carefully to re-examine the matter. I am delighted that the Minister is prepared to look again, but I would be even more delighted if the Government made a concrete improvement to their position, and I hope that the reconsideration is not just a measure to get the Minister through today's debate.
	To allow even limited retrospection to 1988, the date when the equivalent provision was introduced for mixed-sex couples, would represent true equality of provision, and we shall introduce amendments to achieve that in Committee. That process will involve the insertion of a new clause, so the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) may have a point.
	Quite apart from the inherent inequality of the Government's current position, surely it is wrong to penalise people who have done what the Government are always encouraging them to do by saving for their retirements. So why do the Government continue to resist? The argument is twofold and concerns cost and an aversion to retrospective provisions. Turning to the latter point first, I accept that it is undesirable to make retrospective provision in such matters, but it is not written in tablets of stone that it should not be done. If the choice is between retrospection and discrimination, surely retrospection should win the day.
	The matter is not without precedent. In 1994, the Conservative Government changed the rules to allow female part-time workers who had been excluded from occupational pension schemes to obtain retrospective rights back to 1976, if they had paid the appropriate contributions. As far as parties to a civil partnership are concerned, the contributions will already have been paid, so we seek not an improvement in their position, but merely the removal of discrimination. In that case, employers bore the cost, whereas public sector pensions entail a cost to the Treasury.
	What will the actual cost be? The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton referred to that point, and Stonewall has received actuarial advice that the cost would be between 6 million and 12 million per year over 15 years depending on the take-up of civil partnership or, to put it another way, between 0.01 and 0.02 per cent. of the pensionable payroll. Indeed, the Treasury might make a net saving, because parties to a civil partnership are entitled to equal treatment in relation to benefits and tax credits, which could amount to some 60 million per annum if the Government's position remains unchanged.
	The question of survivor pension rights is the only substantive point of difference between the Government and Liberal Democrat Members, but it will not go away. Even if the Government refuse to concede the point here, they may be forced to concede it if the Bill is challenged in the courts. The Government will be aware of the decision in the House of Lords on the Godin-Mendoza case on 21 June this year. When the Minister replies, will she explain how the Government's position may be reconciled with the decision in that case? There is an old saying that for a ha'p'orth of tar the ship was lost; how much good will are the Government prepared to lose before they change their mind?
	I shall expand my earlier remarks on the application of the Bill to mixed-sex couples and, in particular, to the much cited cases of carers and spinster sisters living out their latter years together. In principle, I have some sympathy for the arguments in both those cases, but we have gone well beyond arguing broad principle and are dealing with a Bill, and a fairly substantial Bill at that. It is apparent to anyone who bothers to read the Bill that the Government have, with some care, sought to re-enact the provisions relating to civil marriage for mixed-sex couples, warts and all. They have sought to put same-sex couples in exactly the same position as people who are married in a civil ceremony.
	If one considers the Bill as being about outcomes rather than about labels, one must ask what benefit a mixed-sex couple would accrue by entering a civil partnership rather than a civil marriage. I cannot see one. Like a civil marriage, a civil partnership requires a declaration to be made before a registrar and witnesses, the same degrees of relationship are forbidden and publication of the intention to enter into the partnership remains the same as for marriage.
	Should a civil partnership fail and be shown to have broken down irretrievablythe only ground for divorce in a civil marriageit can be dissolved only by a court process, which addresses all the same issues as a divorce. So what is the difference for a mixed-sex couple? The only difference would be the acquisition of inferior pension rights for a surviving spouse in certain circumstances, but as I said, we have plans on that matter. In principle, I do not object to making the Bill available to mixed-sex couples, but in practice I can see no material benefit in doing so.
	Turning to the Baroness O'Cathain provisions, I sympathise with the points that she raised in the other place but, as others said there, the Bill is not the place to address them. The argument concerns people who cohabit and who have a relationship based on lovealbeit that the love that exists between siblings is very different from that which exists between partners drawn from outwith the family. The law has always treated such relationships differently for strong social, genetic and scientific reasons, and to abandon that approach in this Bill would be dangerous to say the least.
	In some parts of my constituency, a higher than average number of peopleeither siblings living together or a child caring for an elderly parentlive in that way. In my experience, those people mostly manage to regulate their affairs and do not create problems for themselves or others in their family. However, I suspect that many of them would be offended by the suggestion that their relationship was in some way comparable to that of a husband and wife or a same-sex couple in a long-term relationship.
	One can imagine even greater difficulties being created by the Bill as it stands. The example cited is usually that of the adult's offspring who gives up his or her job to care for an elderly parent, but what about the same person who gives up a job to care for both elderly parents? He or she would be prohibited from entering into a civil partnership until one or other of the parents dies. That surely cannot be right.
	Most of the perceived inequalities could be eliminated by changes to taxation and property law, but that is not what the Bill is about. There will be another Finance Bill next year whereby such changes can be effected.
	We need to pay attention to several other aspects of the Bill, and we shall do so in Committee. There are interesting debates to be had about the use of church buildings for the conduct of ceremonies and the recognition of civil partnerships in other jurisdictions. I look forward to hearing the Minister's explanation of the Government's position regarding the recognition of same-sex marriages constituted in Massachusetts. However, those are more issues of detail than of substantial principle, and they properly belong on the Committee Corridor, not on the Floor of the House.
	For today, I am satisfied that the Bill is necessary and overdue. It is about ending discrimination and promoting equality, and we should all take pride in giving it the Second Reading that my colleagues and I will support tonight.

Angela Eagle: I welcome this groundbreaking Bill, which has been introduced by a Labour Government, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), who had a great deal to do with its early stages. Although she was unable to be around for its production, she has every right to very proud of the work that she put in.
	This is a complex and comprehensive Billexhaustive, even, as I thought when I looked at some of its details the other nightand it has been three years in the preparation. It covers all the bases in terms of giving, as closely as possible, with the proviso of a few little kinks that I shall mention, equality of legal recognition to same-sex partners, who until now have not had their partnerships, however long-standing or loving, recognised in law at all. It is a time of celebration for many of us and of considerable personal interest for some of us.
	For many years, same-sex couples have had to live not only with bigotry and ignorance, but with being legally invisible. We have heard some moving comments about the awful situations that that has created for them in times of great personal hardship. It is a great moment for celebration that the Governmentand at least some Conservative Members, notably those on the Front Benchrealise that now is the time to put that injustice right and to grant legal recognition to same-sex partnerships. That gives them rights and responsibilities in terms of expressing their own partnerships with each other and having those partnerships recognised in law over a range of issues, including equitable treatment for life assurance; almost equal pension benefits, with, I hope, even more movement during the passage of the Bill; next of kin rights; rights to death registration; intestacy recognition; and gains in respect of recognising partnerships for capital gains tax and inheritance tax purposes. Those measures will avoid distressing tales of the kind that we have heard during the long consultation period and the response from many members of our society to the Government's comprehensive and long-awaited proposals.
	As is only right in these circumstances, there should be responsibilities toofor example, a duty to provide maintenance for a partner in a civil partnership and any children who happen to be involved in the family.
	Today we are celebrating the validity of same-sex partnerships. If the Bill becomes law, as I hope that it will at the end of this Session, and is enacted about a year from now, people will finally be able to celebrate their partnerships in that way.
	The Bill does not represent an unusual obsession of the Labour Governmentit is in the mainstream of change that is taking place world wide. The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) mentioned some of the international comparisons in his excellent speech. In western Europe alone, 13 other countriesDenmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Iceland, France, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Belgium and Luxembourghave already introduced forms of registered partnerships or have such proposals in the pipeline. Areas of the world with similar plans include Hungary, Croatia, Canada, various states of the USA, and parts of Australia. New Zealand will consider a civil union Bill later this year. The Bill is in the mainstream of legal reform throughout advanced societies.
	We have seen today a welcome change in the attitude of Conservative Front Benchers. However, there is still a Janus-faced side to the Conservatives that perhaps explains the free vote. They have a schizophrenic attitude; one need only read the debates in the House of Lords to understand how that manifests itself. I wish Conservative Members who are fighting the good fight well and hope that they continue to make progress. Some of the comments that were made in the House of Lords give some measure of the distance still to go in order to persuade Conservative Back Benchers that they should share the welcome views expressed by their Front-Bench colleagues. Baroness O'Cathain said that the Bill creates
	a parody of marriage for homosexuals.[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 May 2004; Vol. 661, c. GC54.]
	That echoes the awful and hurtful phrase, pretend family relationships, which so damaged many same-sex couples during the era of section 28. Many Conservatives in the Lords are associated with the spoiling and wrecking amendments that have effectively torpedoed the Bill unless we can reverse them.
	A great deal of work is required to persuade some Conservative Members that they should show respect to people who may not be of an orientation of which they approve but nevertheless have the same human rights as they have. I hope that the time of oozing hostility and distaste is passing, but there is still a fight to be had, and I wish those on the right side of the Conservative party well.
	The extraordinary thing about the Bill's passage through the House of Lords was that it was used as an opportunity to drive a coach and horses through inheritance tax. It was used to argue that liabilities to inheritance tax or property rights somehow ought to be minimised through the Bill. The amendments that were passed, which, thankfully, the Conservative Front Bench will oppose, and which, I hope, will be overturned today, would cost 2.8 billion annually in forgone tax liabilities. I cannot think of anything less respectful than trying to turn something so important into a tax loophole.

Gerald Howarth: Can the hon. Lady tell the House where she gets that figure of 2.8 billion from?

Angela Eagle: Official Government figures suggest that the amount is 2.8 billion, as the hon. Gentleman will see if he reads the House of Lords debates, as those figures were used by the Minister in the other place. That is quite a lot of money, and it is annual.

Gerald Howarth: The fact is that inheritance tax raises 2.6 billion a year in total. The hon. Lady cannot seriously suggest that the changes proposed by my noble Friend Baroness O'Cathain would result in an even greater forgoing of tax by the Treasury than the total amount currently claimed by inheritance tax.

Angela Eagle: No, but inheritance tax is only part of the tax loopholes created by the vote to incorporate new clause 2 and schedule 1 in the Bill. The figure represents the cost of the whole effect of the provisions that we are considering. Although the hon. Gentleman is obsessed with inheritance tax, other loopholes are created by what the Lords did to the Bill.
	We have all been brought up to respect the level of debate in the Lords, assisted by all the extremely expert people whom we are told are always in there. But this debate, I believe, is one of the most shameful that have been held in the House of Lords. It has had a ridiculous effect on the Bill. I shall quote a few of the people whom it purports to help. The Solicitors Family Law Association called the amendments an unworkable mess and an absurdity. Lord Alli saidrightly, I thinkthat they were
	spoiling amendments designed to make the Bill unworkable.
	The Lesbian and Gay Lawyers Association said:
	We do not believe that people who care for their elderly parents would want to be in a situation where they would be prevented from marrying . . . and be jointly assessed for welfare benefits with their parents.
	Carers UK, who were meant to be assisted by the amendments, said:
	The changes would have a devastating impact on the income of the carer and the person for whom they care.
	The Law Society said that
	it is inappropriate simply to include them
	family members
	within the categories of those who can register a civil partnership. Registration will not solve their problems and may even worsen their position.
	Many who have spoken in the debate so far have referred to the absurd effects of the amendments. I will give another example: a daughter entering into a civil partnership with her elderly mother to avoid inheritance tax would be effectively married to her own mother, and if she met a man whom she wished to marry, she would have to go to law to prove that her relationship with her mother had irretrievably broken down. She might also be legally liable to support her mother financially in any subsequent settlement. Clearly, that is ridiculous and inappropriate, and I am a glad that Front Benchers of all the major parties have said that they will be in the Lobby to expunge those amendments from the Bill.

Ann Widdecombe: The hon. Lady has just used an interesting term. She said that if a daughter and mother entered into a civil partnership, the daughter would be married to the mother. Therefore, she is saying that the Bill is about homosexual marriage. It is about one person in a civil partnership being married to the other.

Angela Eagle: It is not for me to interpret what the Government Front-Bench team want. I was careful in my choice of phraseI said that such people would be effectively married. Whether one believes that that is homosexual marriage, as the right hon. Lady clearly does, or that it is a parallel state, which recognisesrightly, in my viewthe legal rights and responsibilities for people who live in caring same-sex relationships, is irrelevant. Clearly, it is a completely inappropriate state to expect mothers and daughters, grandfathers and grandsons and other numbers of family members or carers who may be unrelated to the people for whom they are caring to resort to, in order to avoid some of the problems that currently occur with inheritance tax or property rights. When important disadvantages are associated with that, one needs to consider changing property rights or tax law to deal with the matter, rather than opting a whole load of people, who are sometimes closely related to each other, into what is either a marital state or something parallel to a marital state. I hope that she will agree that that would be completely unhelpful and absurd.
	I want to spend a little time talking about pensions for surviving partners. I very much welcome the commitment that the Government gave earlier to taking another look at the problem of unequal access to occupational pension entitlements under the Bill as drafted. We welcome the fact that it grants equal access to state pension entitlements in what is a highly complex and technical set of provisions, but as the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) rightly identified, as drafted it treats same-sex couples and married heterosexual couples unequally in respect of survivors' pension benefits under occupational pension schemes. Indeed, the same point is made in the fifteenth report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I recommend that everyone read. It deals with the issue extremely cogently.
	That admirable report points out what would happen under the Bill as drafted. Let us compare the situation of a married couple, one of whom dies, and a couple who entered into a civil partnership, one of whom also dies. Even if both deceased people make exactly the same contributions to exactly the same occupational pension scheme and die on exactly the same dayfor example, the day after the Bill is enactedthere will be completely different outcomes for the surviving spouse and for the surviving partner of the civil partnership couple. One will get 17 years of their partner's pension contributions, but the other will get nothing. For what is a small sumas the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland explained, the Government's figure is 9 million a year for 15 years before the provision fades awaywe could put right an anomaly that will discriminate purely on the ground of sexual orientation if the Bill is passed in its current form, even though such people have made exactly the same contributions to the same pension scheme.

David Borrow: Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be odd if someone like me, who has been paying into a public sector pension fund for nearly 30 years, did not have the same rights as a married heterosexual man, and if they did not receive any discount in respect of the amount that they had been forced to pay throughout that period?

Angela Eagle: My hon. Friend makes in a much shorter way precisely the point that I am labouring to make. Fixing this kink in the Bill as drafted is a question of equity rather than retrospectivity. Given that the contributions to these schemes have already been made, retrospectivity does not arise. What matters is ensuring that people in a similar statecivil partners or spouseshave access to the same benefits in the same way. So arguing about retrospectivity distracts us from the real issue, which is equity.
	I am delighted that the Government have recognised that this is an issue. I hope that we will get a little more information in the winding-up speech on how they intend to proceed, but I certainly welcome their open-mindedness in taking another look at this problem. I hope that, if we can fix it appropriately, we can then concentrate on dealing with the wrecking amendments introduced in the Lords, and speed the passage of this extremely overdue but welcome legislation on to the statute book.

Ann Widdecombe: I believe that this Bill is wrong. If we pass it today, we will undermine the uniqueness of marriage, which is why I will oppose it at every stage. In a moving and interesting speech, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) paid tribute to those who have worked hard to bring the Bill about. I pay tribute to those who have worked hard and fearlessly for many decades, in an increasingly secular and sardonic society, to defend the institution of marriage, to defend traditional values, and to defend families.
	I believe that what we are doing today is misconceived. I challenged the Minister, who responded with nearly 100 per cent. honesty, to say whether the Bill is really about homosexual marriage. I also challenged my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), who responded with a parallel lines analogy, but had to admit, under pressure, that those lines almost converged. He said that they did not quite cross, but I believe that, when it comes to civil marriage and the Bill, they do. That is what we have to address: do we think that homosexual marriage is right?
	Everyone on this side of the House would cleave to the proposition that it is wrong of the Government to interfere in the exercise of free choice. The fact is that the Government do not interfere in the exercise of the free choice of homosexual individuals to form relationshipssometimes very committed onesor to set up domestic arrangements together, which may then prove to be of very considerable or permanent duration. There is nothing in our lawor, increasingly, in the attitudes of society, which have been a bigger barrier in the pastto prevent that.

David Borrow: I recognise the strong reasons why the right hon. Lady will oppose the Bill on Second Reading this evening, but the Bill is made up of many parts and provisions. I would be interested to know of which specific parts of the Bill that will assist same-sex couples the right hon. Lady approves and of which parts she disapproves.

Ann Widdecombe: I am coming on to that, if the hon. Gentleman will be patient. I am currently setting out the grounds of my opposition to the Bill.
	Failing to pass the Bill will not stop, put any barrier in the way of, or make it illegal for two homosexual individualswhether they be male or femaleto set up a permanent relationship. If I thought that the law prevented that from happening, my attitude would be different, but it does not. The question before us is not whether we prevent that from happening, but whether we bless such arrangements with equivalent rights that have been wholly reserved for marriage in the past. That is the question that has to be answered today.
	I accept that there are some unkindnesses and inequalitiesto use the buzzword, though I noticed that my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton has a concept of both equality and costless equality, which are apparently rather differentin the way people who have set up a homosexual relationship will be treated by comparison with those who have set up in a proper married state. People whose domestic arrangements and sharing and caring responsibilities place them outside marriage will also face similar unkindnesses and problems.
	I happen to agree that the Bill is not the right place or context to rectify those problems. I do not impute wrecking motives to those who voted in a certain way, because they were making a point, saying that the inequalities are not confined to homosexual couples so that if we are concerned about them in the one context, we should also be concerned in the other. The Bill is not, as I said, the place to address that matter.
	Equally, the Bill is not the right way to address those problems when applied to homosexuals. The essence of the Bill is that people sign a register, as they do when they marry, which automatically confers all the rights of marriage. If there are problems, such as being dispossessed of a home because of inheritance tax or tenancy arrangements, they should be dealt with separately and they should cover not just homosexual arrangements but others as well.

Chris Bryant: To do what the right hon. Lady suggests, one would have to decide beforehand which people would be affected. Would that not mean that some kind of civil partnership would have to be set up?

Ann Widdecombe: No. As the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle) pointed out just now, it would be nonsensical to have a civil partnership between a mother and a daughter. I believe that we must look again at the categories of person who are disadvantaged by a given provision, and then deal with problems on their merits in appropriate legislationfor example, the Finance Bill.

Alan Duncan: The fundamental premise being put forward by my right hon. Friend is that she wants to defend and protect traditional heterosexual marriage, and I think that all hon. Members agree with that. However, does she accept that homosexual love exists, as do permanent long-term homosexual relationships? Those relationships are of considerable value, even though they may be different. People who are gay are never going to enter into a heterosexual marriage, but does my right hon. Friend accept that their wish to be recognised as partners in no way competes with or undermines the heterosexual marriage that she wants to defend?

Ann Widdecombe: No, I do not accept that. I am usually in agreement with my hon. Friend, but perhaps not on this occasion. He says that homosexual love exists, and of course it does. As I said earlierand I think that most Conservative Members will agreeit is inappropriate for Government to intervene in people's exercise of choice. People who want to enter such relationships should be able to do so because, after all, Almighty God gave us all free will. My question is whether we should deal with some of the anomalies that exist in homosexual relationships, and other caring arrangements, by means of a Bill on civil partnerships which, of necessity, precludes any arrangements other than homosexual partnerships. Alternatively, should we not look at each case individually and then decide whether to extend some of the provisions to certain groups in certain specified circumstances?
	What is proposed, however, would restrict to one group only the rectification of the unkindnesses and injustices that I have mentioned. That would be achieved not by addressing the individual laws involved but by creating a register that exactly resembles the marriage register and by making the divorce provisions exactly the same as those that apply to civil marriage. As a result, the proposals would extend to another group a property that has always been unique to marriage.
	There will be two views in this House about whether that is desirable, but we should have the basic honesty today to acknowledge what it is that we are doing. If we pass this Bill, we will send out of this House the message, which will be translated into law, that marriage is no longer unique. I want to keep it unique, but other hon. Members may not.

Alistair Carmichael: rose

Angela Eagle: rose

Ann Widdecombe: I hope that the hon. Gentleman and hon. Lady will forgive me, but I am under some time pressure[Hon. Members: There is no time limit on speeches.] The pressure does not arise from any time limit, as I am about to explain.
	If we want to keep marriage unique we should vote against this Bill. That is not to say that I do not recognise that the law contains certain unkindnesses that could and should be addressed in other ways. However, when we address them we should not restrict our efforts to one group, and certainly no effort in that regard should take the form of this Bill.
	Madam Deputy Speaker, may I apologise to the House for the fact that I will not be present for the wind-up speeches? In case anybody accuses me of wimping out, I sincerely hoped that I would be able to get back for the vote but I have an urgent and completely unavoidable engagement which, owing to circumstances beyond my control, is now imminent. I apologise for that: when I asked to speak in the debate, it was certainly not my intention to miss the vote. However, I wanted to be able to make a clear statement of the fact that I believe in the uniqueness of marriage. I am prepared to address injustices, but not through aping marriage.

Jane Griffiths: I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate on this groundbreaking Bill. The Bill represents the partial completion of more than three years' work, because almost three years ago I was proud to move the Relationships (Civil Registration) Bill under the ten-minute rule. My Bill sought to allow all couples living together to register their relationship, but this Bill addresses the issue of same-sex couples. That is why I describe it as a partial completion. I will not rehearse the arguments about that nowothers will do and have done so ably. However, I welcome wholeheartedly this Bill as a major step forward for the rights and responsibilities of an important section of our community.
	It has been said that all people deserve to be treated with respect. That is right and that is what the Bill is about. As an aside, I may say how pleased I am to see gay and lesbian people as part of the mainstream of our society and no longer having to skulk, as they did 30 or 40 years ago, in little establishments that the rest of us were not even supposed to think about. I draw the House's attention to the first ever Pride festival in Reading last month. It was a delightful occasion and I invite all hon. Members to join us in future years.
	When I introduced my Bill I received much support from Thames Valley police and, in particular, from WPC Alison Brown, who has been in a stable relationship for more than a decade and, like all Thames Valley police officers, pays 11 per cent. of her salary into her pension scheme. However, should she die, her partner would receive nothing. Alison has led a campaign for a change in the police pension scheme. In that respect, I am pleased to hear from Ministers today that the whole pensions issue will be reconsidered. I appreciate that the issue is complex and may be costly, but sometimes its costliness can be exaggerated. It should not be forgotten that gay and lesbian couples are not treated as households for the purpose of benefit entitlement. When I introduced my Bill I had letters from several people in same-sex partnerships who said that they were claiming benefit because they could. Their partners could afford all the household expenses, but my correspondents claimed housing benefit because they could. That is wrong. Benefits should be paid because they are needed, not because someone can claim them. That is the sort of anomaly that should disappear when the Bill becomes law, as I fervently hope it will.
	Can we learn from the rest of the world? Many countries in Europe and the developed world have partnership registration legislation and schemes, and other hon. Members have ably described them. Some countries have gone even further and allowed same-sex couples to marry. That has been a matter for some debate, especially in the United States, but also in Europe. Almost all our near neighbours have introduced some changes to allow same-sex couples some rights and, of course, some responsibilities and, as Chicken-licken might have said, the sky has not fallen in.
	I was pleased that following the introduction of my Bill in 2001 much work was done in government. I was pleased to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) about some of that work and the commitment to addressing the issue shown by officials and Ministers. As I have said, lesbian and gay partners are at present treated more generously under social security provision than others. A system of civil registration would allow same-sex couples to be treated in the same way as other couples. If people are not working, for whatever reason, the benefits they receive should not be affected by whether they are gay or lesbian, or heterosexual.
	I was grateful, too, for the help and support that I received from Stonewall when I was preparing my Bill. At the time, I was contacted by a couple in my constituencyEd and Tonywho have been in a stable relationship for many years. Ed was some years older than Tony, so he was concerned about what would happen if he died first. I am grateful for the heartfelt support that I received from Ed and Tony and for the support that I know they give this Bill. They are not alone. I have been contacted by a number of people who told me about their circumstances.
	John has been in a relationship for seven years and is buying a car with his partner. That is a normal thing to docouples do that all the time. The model comes with a year's free insurance but, under the scheme, it applies only to what are described as normal couples, so John and his partner must decide which of them can be insured for freethe other will have to pay.
	Dick and Ben are in their 70s and have been together for 50 years. Of course, they have endured the general prejudice against the gay communityif we can use that wordas well as some of the injustices and, as the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) said, unkindnesses that the Bill sets out to correct. I was interested that the right hon. Lady used that word; it is one that should be used in the House.
	Dick and Ben jointly own their home and most of their other assets, but in the high-cost area that they, and I, inhabit they will face massive inheritance tax, which is likely to make it impossible for the survivor to remain in their home. I understand that, at present, inheritance tax is a shibboleth of the Conservative party and this is not the place to explore the complex issues surrounding it.
	I received a letter from Mark in support of the Bill. He said:
	Many people criticise homosexual people for the alleged frequency and rapidity with which they change partners, yet still take the opinion that a measure to support enduring and meaningful gay relationships is also wrong.
	Those real life examples provide evidence that the change we want to make is so right and that the wrecking attempts in the other place are so wrong. I am proud to have played a part in getting the Bill to this point and I look forward to it becoming law.

Robert Key: The Bill is about justice. The subject of civil partnerships is a heady mixture of sex, prejudice and religion, and the Bill is a serious attempt to address the injustices facing same-sex couples in the context of changing social attitudes and evolving religious interpretation of the scriptures.
	It is a great strength of the Bill that it offers a secular solution to the way in which same-sex couples are treated, but there is also an important religious dimension. The Church of England, rightly, is the established Church of our country and Christian values are intertwined throughout our constitution.
	I was a signatory to a cross-party letter urging support for the measure, sent to all Members of the House in September. We think that the Bill will remedy many of the injustices faced by stable same-sex couples. We also believe that it should be passed in its original form, without the amendment passed by the House of Lords on Report, which extended the scope of the Bill to family members and carers. I have great sympathy for siblings and others in mutually supportive relationshipswe all know many such people in our constituenciesbut I am convinced that the provision is wrong. That view is shared widely by Carers UK, the Law Society and others, so I very much hope that the House will remove the amendment. I am delighted that that position has the support of the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition.
	It is easy for any Government to misjudge the speed of social change, and it is also easy for the House to do so; both must proceed with caution. Similarly, Christian interpretation of scripture moves on and practice in the Church evolves. It does so in a way that some find too fast, while others find it too slow. I believe that now is the right time for both Parliament and the Church to take a lead, which I am sure will be acceptable to the majority of our citizens, including Christian congregations.
	It is good that the Bill proposes justice for gay and lesbian people. Is it not interesting, Madam Deputy Speaker, that 10 or 15 years ago those words would not have passed my lips? If we are honest, it is a measure of our own prejudice that I would not have spoken the words gay or lesbian thencertainly not in public.
	The Bill would remove some of the almost mediaeval prejudices against gay and lesbian people. If they enter a civil partnership, the Bill would ensure similar legal recognition and similar consequences for their relationship as those enjoyed by married couples. I am a strong supporter of traditional marriage and I declare my interest. I have enjoyed 36 years of marriage and I look forward to many more. I believe that the term marriage and the cultural identity that it implies should be reserved for heterosexual couples and that it should have a religious as well as a secular dimension. I can understand why some committed same-sex couples yearn to call themselves married, but I urge them not to alienate opinion by pressing that wish and to settle instead for civil partnerships.
	By giving legal and practical recognition to same-sex relationships, the Bill may help to support them and encourage their stability. Surely it is good to minimise the breakdown of any relationships. I believe that the Bill will enhance the institution of marriage by increasing public approval for stable, committed, loving interdependent relationships in society. I fail to see that acknowledgement of one permanent, faithful, stable relationship can undermine the status of another legally acknowledged, permanent, faithful, stable relationship. How can my marriage be undermined by someone else's civil partnership, or the other way round? Surely the more committed, stable relationships there are, the better. Furthermore, the fact that opposite-sex couples cannot enter into a civil partnership because they have the option of marriage stops civil partnerships being an alternative to marriage. It is marriage or nothing for a straight couple, and civil partnership or nothing for a same-sex couple.
	The Bill will reduce prejudice against such relationships and reduce homophobic violence. It will also reduce homophobia because it challenges the view that the social benefits of marriage, which I think are stability, faithfulness, the nurturing of children, mutual support and so on, can apply only to relationships between people of the opposite sex. That is important. I have found it quite a struggle intellectually and emotionally to come to the view, for example, that same-sex couples can become parents. They do not always want to do so, and it is not always appropriate. Opinion remains very divided within the gay community, let alone within the heterosexual community, about the merits or otherwise of in vitro fertilisation or embryo manipulation among lesbian partners, but it takes place. As more lesbian and gay people become parents, there is now a growing body of research from the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the United States that finds no measurable difference between the children of lesbian mothers in terms of gender identity, social or emotional disturbance, quality of friendships, social acceptance or sexual orientation. Those are the facts. I have faced them and I have talked to some same-sex couples in my constituency. I have concluded that I was as prejudiced about this as most people are, not because I was wicked or perverse or stupid but because that is the received wisdom of the society in which I was born and educated.
	It requires effort to open one's mind and adjust one's attitude, and it can be a painful process and a journey that, for all sorts of reasons, many people are unwilling to take. In short, we follow the pack or we take a lead, and I hope that the House will take a lead.
	During scrutiny of the Bill in Committee, I hope that the Government will think again about the pensions issue. I believe that a wider power than exists in clause 245(1) is needed to allow limited retrospection to 1988, which I think is the appropriate date. Individual pension schemes could then be altered by regulation after Royal Assent. This is an issue of fairness. Yes, there would be a cost. It would amount to about 0.02 per cent. of pensionable payroll, which equates to about 12 million over 15 years. There would also be savings to the Treasury of about 60 million a year on income-related benefits.
	To return for a moment to the Christian dimension, I was heartened that both the bishops who spoke on Second Reading in the House of Lordsthe Bishops of Oxford and Peterboroughwere broadly in favour of the original Bill. I am a Christian and I am doing my best to live a Christian life, so I pay attention to what the leaders of my Church say. In 2003, the House of Bishops of the Church of England published its guide to the debate, entitled Some Issues in Human Sexuality. The chairman of the working group that produced it was the Bishop of Oxford. It makes very heavy, but very necessary reading if a non-theologian such as me seeks wisdom in place of prejudice.

Gerald Howarth: May I repeat the point that I made earlier? Three of the four bishops who took part in the vote supported the amendments proposed by our noble Friend Baroness O'Cathain. My hon. Friend is a little wide of the mark in suggesting that there is a firm view. In fact, three bishops out of four voted for those amendments.

Robert Key: My hon. Friend is confused about the vote in the other place. I was referring to the debate on Second Reading, in which only the Bishops of Oxford and Peterborough took part, and they were both broadly in favour.
	The Bishop of Oxford gave the official view of the Church of Englandas it happened, on my birthday earlier this yearduring the debate on Second Reading in the Lords. He said that the General Synod had voted to reaffirm the unique place of marriage in the law of this country, but recognised that there are issues of hardship and vulnerability for people whose relationships are not based on marriage that need to be addressed by the creation of new legal rights. That motion was passed by 248 to 27 votes in the General Synod of the Church of England. He also reported that, in its response to the Government's consultation on the Bill, the Archbishop's Council reiterated the central and unique place of marriage and endorsed the need for new legal rights because
	the law no longer reflects current social patterns and needs amendment to remedy injustice.
	I agree.
	In coming to my decision to support the Bill, I have been grateful to many organisations and individuals on both sides of the argument for their advice. I am grateful, too, to the quiet and thoughtful gay and lesbian people in my constituency many of them active Conservative votersfor explaining why the Bill will change their lives for the better. I have received e-mails from as far afield as New Zealand, which has been through such a debate already.
	I am particularly grateful to Jacqueline Humphreysan English barrister specialising in family, matrimonial and ecclesiastical lawfor pointing out some of the legal problems that the Church of England may face if the Bill becomes law. The problems range from the consequences of the clergy entering civil partnerships, including the possible conflict with the Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 and the exclusion of part II of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 in respect of women priests. There could also be new challenges in the occasional offices of baptism, marriage and funerals.
	I am also grateful to the people who have put me in touch with a growing number of Christian websites that tackle morality and sexuality issues from all angles. I started with www.inclusivechurch.net and moved from there across the spectrum of the debate and around the world. I was particularly struck by the discontent among evangelicals at their traditional line.
	In discussing the Bill with people of all ages, it is clear to me that there is indeed a generation divide. First-time votersindeed, second, third and fourth-time votescannot understand how politicians in the House can be so out of touch. They have little or no sympathy for sexual prejudice. We say that we want to listen to young people, but they do not believe us when they hear or read some of the exchanges in the House. It is far harder for people over the age of 40-something to cope with change of all kinds, especially cultural, social and religious change. So, mindful of our heritage and core beliefs, I am convinced that the future is more important than the past, and I hope that Parliament will put the Bill on the statute book as soon as possible.

David Borrow: I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak about a Bill in which I have a personal interest, because I hope to take advantage of it once it is passed. I can think back to what society was like when I was in my late teens and early 20sin the late 1960s and early 1970safter the Sexual Offences Act 1967 was passed and compare it with what it is like now. The 1967 Act made it possible for gay men to live without such a risk of being criminalised, but it did not mean that that was easy, so few entered into lifelong relationships. In about 1971, I met a couple in Huddersfield, where I grew up, who had met during the warthey seemed very old to me at the time, although they were probably about my age now. Couples from previous generations have lived in lifelong relationships, so it is nothing new.
	I have had the privilege of being a Member of the House for the past seven years, during which there has been a sea change in public attitudes to, and legislation affecting, gay people. I have a short list of the measures that the House has taken in that time, because it is sometimes useful to remember what the Labour Government have done since 1997. There have been measures to equalise the age of consent; to equalise sexual offences legislation; to give employment rights; to abolish section 28; to allow gay people to serve in the military; to give adoption rights; and to allow spouses from overseas to join their partners in this country. Those are the measures that I have remembered since I entered the Chamber this afternoon. That batch of legislation has generated changes to public attitudes.
	The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) mentioned some of the unfairness of current legislation and suggested tackling that piecemeal. That would be totally wrong. When people, be they heterosexual or gay, meet someone special, a relationship develops. One can be in love with a person, but that does not mean that one wants to share one's mortgage with them. When the point comes in a relationship when couples decide that they want to make a lifelong commitment, such a commitment should involve rights and responsibilities. If we are considering the structure in which we want couples to live, dealing with only the unfair and difficult bits, such as next-of-kin issues, or a little bit about inheritance tax, will not address the responsibility aspect.
	If we are to provide a proper framework for relationships, there must be a way in which rights and responsibilities kick in. Mixed-sex couples reach that point when they decide to get married, but I believe that too many such couples feel that they can drift along without taking on rights and responsibilities in full, with the misguided assumption that everything will be all right. When people are relatively young, all the ifs, maybes and things that could go wrong seem to be in the distant future, so they wonder why they should worry about them. However, I am beginning to wonder how my partner would cope if something happened to me, because I am not 20-something, but 50-something. That consideration has become crucial to me and many others who are in long-term same-sex relationships.
	I am fortunate that my partner and I have the support of an extended family, so problems involving next of kin, funerals and what happens in hospitals are unlikely to arise as starkly as they do for others. However, there are well-documented cases of the partners of people who have died or become ill being completely excluded from any consideration. We need to address such matters comprehensively, which is what the Bill does.
	The issue of rights and responsibilities relates to benefits. It is crucial that same-sex couples are treated as a single household, not as separate households, in the benefits system. That is part of the quid pro quo of what we want to establish. Whether people see that as the equivalent of marriage is not important. What is important is that we provide a structure for same-sex couples to live their lives in a way that gives them some security, especially as they move towards old age. That is when such issues become very important.
	When I speak to constituents about the subject, they say, What's the big deal? Why is there a problem? I assumed you'd be all right anyway, or Is that what would happen if you died and your partner was left on his own? I didn't realise that was the case. All those issues are in the melting pot.
	There is something important for a couple in publicly demonstrating and affirming their commitment to each other. It is not simply about signing the bit of paper, but about having a big do with families and friends in which the relationship is publicly endorsed by people for whom we care and who care for us. That may be like marriage, but it is important to be able to do that in the family in which I live. It is crucial to demonstrate to my family and friends, and to my partner's family and friends, that this is who we are, where we have come to and how we care about each other.
	The amendments agreed in the Lords will, I hope, be thrown out in Committee. No matter how good the intentions, they are clearly unworkable. If we are to tackle some of the issues raised by the amendments, it is better done elsewhere.
	I have some concerns about the part of the Bill that deals with pensions. I said in an intervention that I have paid into a public sector pension for nearly 30 years. No one has offered me a discount, because survivor's rights are not applicable to me. It is a matter of equality, not retrospectivity. I and thousands of other gay men and women have paid into the pot knowing that our partners will not benefit from it, yet we have had to pay for other people's surviving partners.
	The Minister made a helpful contribution. I look forward to hearing an even more helpful contribution in the wind-ups. I certainly look forward to the Bill's successful passage, with full equality on pensions in due course.

Christopher Chope: Listening to the debate, I have been wondering why the Bill is called the Civil Partnership Bill rather than the same-sex partnership Bill. I suspect that the amendment was passed in the House of LordsI include myself among those who sympathise with the arguments made therebecause people took the Bill at face value and thought that it was about giving new rights to people who are in partnership outside marriage. If it were designed merely to enable those in settled long-term relationships to have a better deal from inheritance tax law or pension benefit law, I would have no problem with it.
	The extent of the financial burden borne by those in settled long-term relationships outside marriage is apparent from the estimate of the Government Actuary's Department, but just extending survivor pension rights in contracted-out pension schemes to close family members could cost as much as 2.25 billion a year. That is not as much as the 5 billion being taxed by the Chancellor from pension funds every year, but it is still a large sum.
	I therefore do not take seriously the Government's suggestion that they will address the issue. Answering interventions, the Minister of State was remarkably vague about what the Government would actually do.
	I welcome what my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition has said on the subject. His letter states:
	I therefore think it better to allow the Bill to be returned to its original form and fight vigorously for provisions to be included in a Finance Bill which would remedy the unfair disadvantages which affect them
	that is, people not of the same sex who are engaged in relationships outside marriage. He continues:
	This is what we shall do our best to achieve in the House of Commons during the passage of the next Finance Bill.
	However, if we go along with the Government's arguments on rejecting the Lords amendments to the present Bill, we will have missed a great opportunity to get a fair deal for participants in long-term relationships outside marriage.

Edward Leigh: The truth is that no Government will ever address that issue in any Finance Bill. Doing so would simply be too expensive.

Christopher Chope: My hon. Friend states the very point implicit in my remarks. It is disingenuous of the Government to argue that they will give serious consideration to the matter when they have an opportunity, in the form of the Civil Partnership Bill, to ensure that there is no discrimination between different types of relationship outside marriage. We should deal with all such relationships on the same basis.
	Ultimately, we shall have to face the problem that is succinctly and coherently set out at paragraph 22 of the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which states:
	when the Bill comes into force, exemption from inheritance tax will be available to a surviving spouse and a surviving civil partner, but not to the surviving partner of an unmarried heterosexual couple, even though they may have lived together as though husband and wife for the whole of their adult lives, and possibly raised children together.
	That is the problem that we as parliamentarians should be addressing, but the Government are ducking it.

Alistair Carmichael: Surely the difference is that an unmarried heterosexual couple have the opportunity to rectify that problem by entering into a secular or civil marriage. That course of action is not available to same-sex couples.

Christopher Chope: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman made that intervention, because it brings me to my next point. The argument he makes has been echoed by Lord Lester and Ministers, but it is not justified, as paragraph 24 of the Joint Committee's report points out:
	The Government's argument is that there is an objective justification for any difference of treatment, because unmarried heterosexual couples may be free to marry. But a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in a case called Miron v Trudel illustrates that the courts may not accept this line of argument. The Canadian court recognised that heterosexual couples who choose not to marry may do so for very personal reasons of conscience and belief, for example because of the historical implications of the word 'marriage' and the historical nature of the institution in which the woman was treated as property. Second, the court noted that being unmarried may not always be a choice made by both partners in an unmarried relationship. Both of these considerations would call in to question the Government's reliance on 'choice' as the justification for not extending the scope of the Bill to opposite-sex unmarried couples.
	I am sure that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, know people who have been widowed and who do not wish to enter into a new marriage because they feel that they have had their one and only marriage, but that does not stop them entering a long-term relationship. At present, such people are discriminated against by the legislation. So, too, are the many people whose marriage has collapsed but who, because one party to the marriage objects, have to serve out their five years of separation before they can get a divorce. There are many examples of people who live together but who do not effectively have the choice to get married. That is where I disagree with some of the observations that have been made by those who seek to justify the distinction that is being drawn.
	Why are the Government not concerned

David Borrow: I have listened to the hon. Gentleman's arguments with great interest. Will he explain whether he wants to encourage more people to get married or whether he wants to encourage people to have the benefits of marriage without getting married? Does he feel that that would be entirely within traditional Conservative family philosophy?

Christopher Chope: I believe that people should be free to choose whether they want to get married or to enter into any other sort of relationship. I am not in the business of encouraging people to do this or that. If I were to encourage people to take a particular direction, that would probably be counter-productive.
	Why are the Government putting one particular type of relationship outside marriage on a pedestal, in preference to all others? The unavoidable conclusion that I have reached is that the Bill is a homosexual marriage Bill in all but name. As a result, it will be a double whammy. It will further undermine the institution of marriagethe holiest state of matrimony. At the same time, it will be an affront to Christians and other faith communities. It will also be an insult to all those who happily share their lives with relatives or friends outside marriage, because their relationships will be given institutional inferiority to homosexual ones.

Alistair Carmichael: I ask the hon. Gentleman, as a Christian myself, to draw the distinction between marriageas I see it and as I have benefited from an institution being solemnised in a churchand civil marriage, which is a highly secular and different institution.

Christopher Chope: I am happy to draw that distinction. I was lucky enough to be married in Wimborne Minster. I have not been married for as long as my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), but I hope that I shall be able to be married for as long as him before my time is up. I recognise the distinction. I am concerned about the way in which the Bill does all but equate the terms of marriage breakdown with civil partnership breakdown.
	For example, why is it necessary for a party to a civil partnership to have to wait for a year before they can start divorce proceedings? Why is it necessary in a civil partnership to have to prove irretrievable breakdown of the relationship before that relationship can be severed in law? Why is it that we are adopting, in the language of the Bill, exactly the same provisions as those that are contained in the laws relating to the breakdown of marriage? It seems that that is being done because the Government's mindset is that the Bill is about homosexual marriage.
	The only difference is that one of the grounds for breakdown leading to divorce in a proper marriage is sexual infidelity on the part of the other partner to the marriage. I have not seen any provision in the Bill that refers to sexual infidelity on the part of the other partner to a civil partnership as being a ground for divorce.
	I regret that I find this to be an extremely muddled Bill. That brings me to a brief and succinct conclusion. If one is minded to use contemporary slang, the most appropriate expression to sum up the Bill is that it is a buggers' muddle. When we turn to the dictionary of slang, we find that that means that it is an absolute mess.

Ann McKechin: It is a pleasure to follow many Members who have spoken this afternoon, with the possible exception of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope), who seems to have a muddled view of the legal definition of adultery, which does not apply to relationships between same-sex partners.
	I support the Government's proposals and welcome this progressive and timely reform. I very much hope that co-operation will be achieved in both Chambers to allow the measure to complete its passage before this Session ends. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr. Borrow) gave a compassionate explanation of the dilemmas facing same-sex couples in permanent long-term relationships and there is an increasing sense of injustice at their treatment under the law. I welcome cross-party support for the Bill from Front-Bench spokesmen and I appreciate the considered speeches made by the hon. Members for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) and for Salisbury (Mr. Key). I hope that other Conservative Members will accept without qualification that the amendments made in the Lords make nonsense of the Bill and should be deleted. In the Scottish context, it is heartening to note the approval of the overwhelming majority of respondents to the Scottish Executive's consultation on the proposals.
	Nowadays, it seems extraordinary that homosexual acts in Scotland were illegal as late as 1980. At that time, the comments of the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) would probably have been considered very liberal. However, there was a sea change in attitudes in Scotland to homosexuality in the years after the unfortunate debacle when the Scottish Parliament legislated to remove the utterly iniquitous section 28 or, as it was known in Scotland, section 2A. Most Scots were deeply embarrassed about the hostile, macho, aggressive and narrow-minded manner in which that debate was conducted by a small minority of people in our community and the way in which Scotland was projected to the world as a result. It is an experience that the vast majority of Scots do not wish to repeat. Most of our constituents recognise that the Bill tackles the need to provide formal recognition for same-sex couples and to address the disadvantages that they face under our civil law.
	I do not accept the argument perpetuated by some commentators, including the hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart), that the Scottish Parliament is too scared or feart to seek to legislate on so-called controversial issues. The fact that it had the courage to face down such a personalised and bigoted attack is often forgotten, and it deserves our congratulations. I am confident that any legislation on this subject would pass through the Scottish Parliament with very little controversy, but there are good reasons, not least the fact that changes to the taxation system remain reserved to the UK Parliament, to cover the whole United Kingdom with one piece of legislation and to implement it throughout the country at the same time. In a survey conducted by the Scottish Executive, 82 per cent. of respondents wanted a comprehensive package of rights and responsibilities in devolved areas that largely mirrored those in other parts of the UK, subject to the reforms being firmly based on Scots law. By and large, the proposals in the Bill reflect those sentiments. In fact, the Law Society of ScotlandI declare an interest as a member of that bodyin its response to the consultation conducted by the Scottish Executive stated that one single Act covering the whole United Kingdom
	would have the advantages of avoiding inconsistencies between the jurisdictions, smoothing cross-border issues and ensuring a comprehensive location for the law on this issue.
	I agree.
	Hon. Members have commented on the Bill's pension provisions and I am encouraged by the Minister's assurance this afternoon that she will look at the matter again. On 25 May in the other place, Baroness Hollis, at column 506 of Hansard, referred to the pension provision for widowers that was altered in 1988 to provide survivor pensions. It was not a retrospective measure and she tried to use that as justification for not providing retrospective provisions for same-sex couples. However, she missed the point that the Bill seeks to create a fundamentally new status for a group of people within our society. The widowers in her example received a right additional to those to which they already were entitled by virtue of their married status. Accordingly, I suggest that the parallel that she attempted to draw is incorrect.
	A better analogy is the legal change in the civic status of children born out of marriage and the reforms to provide them eventually with the same rights as legitimate children. In Scotland, that is now set out in the Law Reform (Parent and Child) (Scotland) Act 1986. Those rights started immediately on commencement of the legislation and were not restricted to a certain period. The legislation before us seeks to remedy an injustice, rather than simply give additional rights. It recognises that our society, on the whole, now views same-sex relationships as having validity in our communities, just as we recognised 30 years ago that questions of legitimacy should not affect a child's rights or status in our society. The Bill should be viewed on the basis of principle rather than mere fiscal advantage.
	In evidence to the report issued on 1 June by the Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliamentas the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) correctly stated, the Scottish Parliament has considered the provisions in a great deal of detailthe Law Society of Scotland expressed concerns about how to establish a partnership retrospectively for the purposes of pension provision. That is a valid point, but I think that the Law Society forgot that, in Scotland, we establish marriage not only by civil registration or religious ceremony, but by habit and repute. Given the experience of other European nations that already have similar legislation, we are not likely to see great numbers taking up such agreements and I believe that the anticipated cost to both state and private pension funds is minimal.
	The matter should also be set against a context of a society in which increasing numbers of adults, such as me, are not married or in permanent relationships, which offsets any increase in fund claims. I do not think that it would be too difficult to set up some form of interim arrangements, perhaps based on proof of years spent residing at the same address, to allow these important pension rights to be backdated. I urge the Government to think again about those points, and to propose new amendments to the Bill.
	On a similar point regarding equity, I also wish to raise with the Minister the issue of succession rights, especially as they apply in Scotland. As she will be aware, the Bill will amend the Succession (Scotland) Act 1964 to provide surviving same-sex partners with prior rights to their partner's intestate estate. However, the Bill does not provide that same-sex partners will have legal rights to an estate where their partner dies with a will or where the estate exceeds the level of prior rights. I should explain that prior rights are given for separate categories of estate in Scotland, based on values of heritage, furnishings and movable estate. As the common law currently applies in Scotland, we have always held to the notion that it is not possible to disinherit one's spouse or children. Given that legal rights can amount to either a third of the deceased's movable estate if there are surviving issue or one half if there are no surviving issue, that can be an important entitlement.
	I note from the Justice Committee's report of 1 June that the Scottish Executive Minister for Justice identified that issue. I would be grateful if the Minister now present will confirm that the Government will seek to amend the legislation in Committee to provide full parity, as in the rules that apply in succession for married couples. Given the complexity of the law of succession in Scotland, of which many people are ignorant, the Minister will concur that it is important to make it clear to same-sex couples that simply entering into a civil partnership in Scotland does not necessarily mean that the survivor will automatically inherit an estate should their partner die intestate. Prior rights are, by definition, a very arbitrary form of determining rights. Given the rise in property values, they frequently fail to cover a significant number of estates each year.
	I understand that the Scottish Executive intend to conduct a review of the law of succession. Given that it is 40 years since the previous major measure, that is probably well due, but I hope that any briefings or advice notes on civil partnerships will strongly recommend that parties consider making their own wills.
	I agree with those hon. Members who have expressed concern about the lack of verbal affirmation to the registration process. Given that in a significant number of cases such partnerships will have repercussions for not only couples, but their children, it is preferable to include a measure that positively indicates consent rather than its simply being inferred. Same-sex couples who express consent want to do so explicitly, particularly because it is likely that friends and family will accompany them through the registration process. It is not too much to insist that they be allowed explicitly to give their consent at such services.
	Finally, I reiterate my support for the Bill. I hope that it will pass through Parliament in this Session, because many same-sex partnerships face hardship and discrimination and they will benefit from the measure.

John Bercow: It is a pleasure and privilege to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Ann McKechin). Since she entered this House, and probably for a substantial period before her election, she has been an articulate champion of sexual equality. Today, she once again made a compelling speech of which she can be proud.
	I strongly support the original form of the Bill, which was introduced to help lesbian and gay couples, and it should be official Conservative party policy to do so. The essential issue is discrimination, which takes the form of the non-existence of gay couples in law. Such discrimination is best tackledindeed, I would argue may only be tackledby the legal recognition of same-sex partnerships. The Bill is not about encouraging homosexuality, but it is about recognising homosexuality; it is not about giving special rights, but it is about affording equal treatment; it is not about undermining marriage, but it is about promoting stable relationships; and it is not about political correctness, but it is about personal decency.

Gerald Howarth: My hon. Friend is, as always, eloquent. Does he understand that some of us have a deep-seated and genuine fear that setting up what my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) called a parallel institution will send out the message to the people of this country that there are two equally valid lifestyles and that one can be in a homosexual relationship or a heterosexualmany of us would describe it as normalrelationship? That message will encourage the proliferation of homosexuality.

John Bercow: My hon. Friend is wronghe is usually wrong on such matters and will probably continue to be wrongbut if he is prepared to exercise the modicum of self-restraint that he can muster in the circumstances, I will attend to his point in due course. Although he is entitled to his viewno one can deny him its possession or expressionI firmly and honestly believe that the Tory party must take a definitive, meaningful and forward-looking stance on the subject.
	As a result of historical discrimination, it is undeniable that gay couples suffer grave injustices. Those injustices should be removed, which the Bill does by giving those who voluntarily opt for the status of civil partner a welter of rights and responsibilities that will be influential in the running of couples' lives. In that senseI am pleased to make this pointthe Bill is an excellent piece of social reform that will significantly improve the lives of a sizeable minority of our fellow citizens, and I warmly congratulate the Government on its introduction.
	Such arrangements exist in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Such arrangements exist in Hungary, Croatia, Canada, parts of the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Such arrangements exist in Brazil, Argentina and Israel.
	I have mentioned more than a score of very different societies, all of which are nevertheless united by a common bond of humanity that for them decrees that such provision should be available. I believe that the time has come for Britain to follow suit. To those who say, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) just did and doubtless others might, that the effect of civil registration arrangements for gay couples will be to undermine marriage, my response is twofold. First, if we look at the two countries that have had civil partnership registration for the longest periodsDenmark and Norway, since 1989 and 1993 respectivelywe see that more people are getting married in those countries than was the case before the advent of the legislation.
	Secondly, we should reflect on the premise underlying that argumentthat helping those who cannot marry means hurting those who can. That is a flawed premise. It is wrong to argue that all politics and legislation represent a zero sum game in which a gain to one individual or group necessarily entails a loss to another. Neither my enjoyment of marriage nor the status of the institution of marriage in our society as a whole depends in any way whatsoever on discriminating against, repressing or vilifying gays and lesbians: far from it. It is possible and, I would argue, desirable for the institution of marriage, on the one hand, and civil partnership, on the other, peacefully to co-exist in this country every bit as successfully as they manifestly do in the plethora of other countries to which I referred. It is simply not correct to argue that, if one introduces a new arrangement, it will somehow corrode the institution of marriage. There is no evidence to justify that thesis.
	As I said at the outset, I strongly support the Bill in its original form. Equally, I strongly oppose the amendment that was successfully pressed in the other place by my noble Friend Baroness O'Cathain to extend civil partnership arrangements to close family relatives over the age of 18 who have lived together for 12 years. That amendment has been variously described by critics as absurd, a distortion, inappropriate, unworkable, a legislative mess and the worst possible outcome. I should like to focus on four of the many arguments against it.
	First, my noble Friend Baroness O'Cathain explicitly argued in the other place that because, following the passage of the Bill, gay couples will enjoy the inheritance tax relief that currently applies to married couples transferring assets to each other, close family relatives should be granted a similar relief. I am prepared to concede that there is an argument for such a policy, but it is a different argument for a different Bill at a different time. The rationale of this Bill is not to deal with inheritance tax, nor is it principally about tax reliefits focus is relationship recognition. If my right hon. and hon. Friends want to argue the case for the reduction or abolition of inheritance tax, good luck to themI happen to think that they have a powerful casebut inheritance tax relief was never originally a rationale for the introduction of the Bill, and it certainly should not be allowed to hijack it and become its defining or central feature now.
	Secondly, my noble Friend Baroness O'Cathain and her supporters were keen to emphasise that they back marriage and wish to bolster the family, yet if one looks at the detail of the amendment, it is clear that it achieves neither of those objectives. Indeed, it is not even neutral. It is counter-productive. It is a force for undermining marriage and damaging the family. The hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle), in a persuasive speech, gave the example of a woman living in a civil partnership with her mother. It is important to underline the significance of that example. If that young woman decides that she wants to get married, she must extricate herself from the civil partnership and then demonstrate that there has been an irretrievable breakdown of her relationship with her motherand there is a possibility that she could wait for up to five years before her wish to marry would be fulfilled. What could be more anti-marriage than that?
	Let us take the other predictable scenario that is almost certain to arise in the event that the amendment remains as clause 2 in the Bill. If, within a family civil partnership, there is a breakdown, and the dissolution process is set in train, there would have to be, quite properly, equitable financial provision for all the different parties involved. Certainly, in most cases, it is foreseeable that the family home would have to be sold. The prospect exists that an elderly relative would be evicted from the home in which he or she had long lived. What could be more anti-family than to do that?
	Thirdly, my noble Friend Baroness O'Cathain and her supporters argue that they want to help carers. Of course, as right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber will acknowledge, very large numbers of carers are within the family, and yet if that is the principal motive force behind the amendment, how does she explain the fact that she failed to consult the principal representative organisation of carers, which has been championing their interests for 40 years, Carers UK? She did not consult the Law Society or the Solicitors Family Law Association either. Each and every one of those three organisationsI name only three at this stagebelieves that there are potent objections to the amendment. All, on the basis of their accumulated wisdom and experience, contend that the amendment would require a massive reactionary rewriting of social security legislation, which would take us back to a pre-Beveridge period. It would take a very long time to undertake, and some of the consequences are uncertain, but of one thing we can be fairly sure: as a result of the rewriting of the law, benefit levels would be lower, and tax payments for all too many people, although they would not yet be aware of it, would be higher. That seems to me a thoroughly counter-productive consequence.

Nicholas Winterton: My hon. Friend, of course, advances a very well-argued case, with which I do not entirely agree but which I respect entirely. Does he accept that, as many contributors to the debate have said, this legislation is to rectify an injustice? Does not he think that he is being unfair on my noble Friend Baroness O'Cathain, who was trying to put right an injustice whereby a daughter, for example, could look after her elderly family for many years, and when her mother and father die might have to leave the family home because she cannot pay the inheritance tax that would be due on the property, which has been her home for the whole of her life?

John Bercow: The argument that my hon. Friend advances can certainly be considered, but, if I may say so, his customary generosity gets the better of him. The reality is that most of us have studied the debates on the Bill, and my noble Friend Baroness O'Cathain set out her stall at an early stage, on Second Reading. I am willing to acknowledge that there will be people who voted for that amendment in good faith, who believe that it can be of benefit and who are not motivated by any desire to undermine the Bill. The trouble is that that argument does not work for my noble Friend Baroness O'Cathain, any more than it works in favour of my noble Friend Lord Tebbit. Both those individuals made it clear beyond doubt that they passionately opposed the Bill and wished that it had never been brought before the House in the first place. Indeed, Baroness O'Cathain explained eloquently and at some length that she would far prefer an inheritance tax abolition Bill and that she thought this a bad Bill that should not have been introduced, so I do not accept that argument.
	I reiterate what seems an important constitutional point. It was grossly irresponsible of Baroness O'Cathain to press the amendmentsuccessfully, as it transpiredwithout undertaking the elementary duty of consulting the organisations whose client groups would be affected. Equally, it was grossly irresponsible of the other place to allow the amendment to pass, in the full knowledge that Baroness O'Cathain had failed so to consult.
	There is a fourth and final argument that I want to make against the amendment, which is that there would be a very substantial cost. The argument has been made by others, but let it be underlined. To suggest an additional 2.25 billion-worth of expenditure, which is what the extension to close family relatives of civil partnership arrangements would require, seems an extraordinarily profligate way in which to behave. I am bound to say to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin)the distinguished shadow Chancellorthat if my party is to pursue a policy of fiscal restraint, it seems a rather curious state of affairs to allow the party in the other place to go ahead with a proposal of this kind.
	Ultimately, the O'Cathain amendment is but a smokescreen. It is a smokescreen erected by its proposers in a determined but ultimately doomed attempt to conceal their deep-seated hostility to the very principle of gay equality. For in fact, of course, they simply cannot abide it. They despise it. They are frightened by it. The policy of the Bill's most vociferous opponents is driven not by considerations of reason, logic or fairness, but by considerations of paranoia and prejudice. Such an approach should be thoroughly denounced and rejected.
	The Tory party cannot just sit on the fence. We have to take a stance; we cannot be on both sides. It is no use simply saying, Oh yes, we recognise the disadvantages and discriminations suffered by gay individuals and couples, and we think that something should be done, so perhaps there is something to be said for supporting the Bill, only then to be happy to participate in a cynical cabal with Members of another place, effectively to undermine the Bill and probably to destroy it. It is wrong in itself to behave in that way. It feeds the very cynicism about the political process that damages each and every one of us in this Chamber and beyond, and ultimately, such behaviour gets found out. It is a profound insult to the electorate's intelligence to think that we can behave in that way without their latching on to it. People are not stupidthey will see when someone is speaking with forked tongue.
	My personal view is that it is not good enough for my own party, of which I have been and remain a proud memberindeed, I have been a member of it for 25 yearsto argue that we can retreat underneath the comfort blanket of a free vote. No, I am afraid that that will not do. We on the Conservative Benches still have a great deal to prove. No member of the current shadow Cabinet voted on 10 February 2000 for equalisation of the age of consent. Only one member of the current shadow Cabinetmy hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo)voted in March last year for the repeal of section 28. This is the third big policy challenge in the field of gay equality and we must not duck it. We must meet it, rise to it and do the decent thing, which happens also in the end to be the politically advantageous thing. We must support the Bill in its pure form. We must support it today, in Committee, on Report and when it becomes law, because of the benefits that will flow from it.
	I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition, who said in his speech at the Saatchi Gallery at the end of October last year that he wanted the Conservative party to be a party capable of representing all Britain and all Britons. He is right. We could start on the road to achieving that objective by voting with enthusiasm and en masse for this Bill in this House.
	We have to decide whether we are to be a 21st century party. Of course that involves removing discrimination, but it involves more than that. It involves Conservatives ceasing to pat themselves on the back by saying, Isn't it good that we preach and practise tolerance?. In the end, the debate is not about tolerance, but about respectrespect for the unique dignity of every individual, respect for all our fellow human beings, respect for the principle of equality before the law and respect for the call for parity of esteem.
	To those who say, You have changed your tune, I say, Yes, I have changed my tune, like my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), and I make no apology for it. The person who never changes his or her mind is the person who never learns anything. I am perfectly prepared to recognise the error of some of my past ways, but I passionately believe in the cause of human equality and social justice. There could be no better signal for the Conservative party to send than the fact that it has changed for the better and changed for good by adopting support for civil partnership as its official policy and giving the Bill, in its original and unadulterated form, the unequivocal blessing that it certainly deserves.

Desmond Turner: This has been a very heartening afternoon, and it is particularly heartening to follow the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), who eloquently articulated the reasons why the amendments passed in the other place have to be removed. I had thought myself perhaps a little cynical about the motives of those who tabled those amendments, but the hon. Member for Buckingham has made me realise that I am absolutely justified in my cynicism about them.
	It is heartening to achieve a piece of social reform, which I am confident that we are going to do. It is a fine Bill. I quote Stonewall, who called it a thorough and far-reaching Bill. It is not often that organisations that we work with outside the House say such things. It is a ringing endorsement and something to be treasured.
	With a few exceptionsperhaps the medieval wing of the Conservative partyeveryone in the House is united on the need to finish addressing the outstanding inequalities and discriminations that our society has been carrying for far too long. The Bill not only brings us up to parity with all the civilised countries of Europe and the rest of the world, but almost completes an ambitious agenda for change on inequalities that the Governmentand Stonewallset out when we came to office in 1997. We abolished section 28 and so on and so forthand now this Bill. All I can think that we will be left with when the Bill completes its passage is addressing discrimination in goods and services. If we do that, we will all have to think very hard to find anything else necessary to complete the package. When that happens, it will reflect extremely well on Parliament.
	It is heartening that the Government have introduced this measure and it is heartening to hear the thoughtful and considered contributions of Conservative Front Benchers and other Conservative Members.
	It is evident that a sea change is under way on the Opposition Benches. Over the past few years, this Government have set about reforming the homophobic elements in our law, some of which were put in place by hon. Members who are members of the current Opposition. Indeed, I seem to remember that it was the current Leader of the Opposition who introduced section 28, but I suppose that he has reformed now so perhaps we should gloss over that for the moment.

Angela Eagle: The right hon. and learned Gentleman did not want to abolish it.

Desmond Turner: No, that is right.
	I shall not speak for long as the debate has been very comprehensive, and has covered all the technicalities very well. Various hon. Members have referred to the important matter of pensions, and it would be a great pity if the Bill were to be undermined by the fact that it contained a serious flaw in respect of inequality of treatment for survivors of those in public sector occupational pension schemes.
	I and other hon. Members have drawn up amendments to deal with that problem. There is no need to set out the arguments involved, as that has already been done. In her opening remarks, my right hon. Friend the Minister indicated that the Government were considering correcting that defect. I hope that when she winds up the debate she will say that the anomaly will be corrected and that the amendments that we have prepared will therefore be rendered superfluous. We should be only too happy not to have to table those amendments and to give the Bill's Second Reading a ringing endorsement in the Division later this evening. The Bill is capable of improvement in various ways, but the important thing is that it will offer people equal treatment. That is its entire purpose.
	I am pleased to have been able to say a few words on this very pleasant afternoon. I am glad to see that the Conservative party is changing and that its rational wing is starting to win over the medieval wing.

Ian Paisley: At the beginning of the debate, the Minister agreed with me when I said that 86 per cent. of the people in Northern Ireland who responded opposed what is planned with this Bill. I shall direct my remarks to Northern Ireland, as this Bill will apply there.
	Any part of the UK that is affected by legislation coming from this House should be given fair play. However, this Bill was printed on 30 March, only 25 days after the end of the consultation process. The wording of its provisions in respect of Northern Ireland were very incomplete and shabby. Then, the Government did an amazing thing on 11 May. They attempted to fix all the provisions that they had got wrong in the original Bill by tabling 52 new clauses and six new schedules. Those 120 pages of amendments must be a record for such an important Bill.
	The day after the amendments were published, the Bill went before the House of Lords. All the amendments were passed with virtually no scrutiny. So the final say, as far as Northern Ireland was concerned, was without consultation, because the amendments were tabled after the original Bill was published.
	The census of 2001 found only 288 same-sex couple households in the whole of Northern Ireland. The Government say that only 5 per cent. of same-sex couples will commit to civil partnerships. Well, 5 per cent. of 288 is 14, so 14 couples in Northern Ireland will have the opportunity provided by the Bill, even though a majority of people who have a view on the matter across the political and religious divide oppose it. Their voices were not heard or taken into account. The basis of family law in Northern Ireland is to be changed for the sake of 14 homosexual couples.
	More than 80 per cent. of the adult population in Northern Ireland are married or single, never having been married. The divorce rate in Northern Ireland is much lower than in England and Wales. The Government say that the Bill will remedy hardships in Northern Ireland. According to the census, there are 330 times more house sharers in Northern Ireland than people living as homosexual couples. However, those house sharers will not have their burdens eased or lifted by the Bill. The Government should come clean and tell us when they will legislate so that everybody who takes on responsibilities in their homes will be treated the same legally. It is essential that we have a response to that from the Government tonight.
	My views on this matter are clear. I believe in the divine sanctity of marriage. I believe that marriage is a solemn and holy thing. A country that does not uphold the institution of marriage strikes at its own heart. The home is the building block of society. If we do not have good, moral and righteous homes, the nation will suffer. We must realise that.
	Many comments have been passed today. We have been told that some of us have not grown up yet. Well, I grew too much because I had a lot of orange juice when I was a baby. It does not matter whether we are told that we have not grown up or are medieval; we have convictions and we are entitled to hold them as strongly as we can. When it comes to legislating for Northern Ireland, I trust that the Government will treat us in the same way as they treat the rest of the United Kingdom. If a Scottish Member got up and revealed the same record on a Bill as I have just done, there would be some row. The same applies to any English or Welsh Member. Why is Northern Ireland treated in this shoddy way on an important issue on which its people have expressed a definite opinion? I trust that that will not be repeated.

Chris Bryant: I am delighted to be able to follow that speech, although perhaps we shall now have to refer to the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) as the orange juice man. I have to tell him that I suspect that there are rather more than 288 homosexual couples living together in Northern Ireland. I suspect that they are very reluctant to admit to the fact, owing to some of the bigotry that they have had to face in Northern Ireland over the years.

David Cairns: They still face it.

Chris Bryant: Indeed.
	I am also glad to have the opportunity to speak in the debate as I have probably married more people than anybody else in the Chamber, because I spent six years in the Church and performed weddings on most Saturdays. I congratulate the Government not only on the Bill as I hope it will end up, nor only on the Bill as they presented it in the House of Lords, but just as important, on the steady process whereby they have tried to achieve consensus on legislation to right wrongs that have existed for years and for centuries.
	We have heard some excellent speeches this afternoon. The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) is not in his seat, but many of us agree with Members who have already said that his was one of the finest speeches we have heard on the subject. Many people who have campaigned on the issue for many long years, in the Chamber and in the wider community, have already spoken: my hon. Friends the Members for Wallasey (Angela Eagle) and for Reading, East (Jane Griffiths, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), who advanced the measure when she held ministerial office.
	It has been good to have some converts over the years. The Lord rejoiceth in the one who changes more than the 99 who were with us in the first place, so it is good to have the hon. Members for Salisbury (Mr. Key) and for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) on our side.
	There has been only one particularly difficult notethe one struck by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope). I think in the final words of his speech he was deliberately offensive not only to those who support the Bill but, more important, to those in the country who feel that their rights will be established by it. It is a shame that the Tory party is still somewhat AC/DC on the issue, but I hope that we shall see further change in the direction that the hon. Member for Buckingham urged on his party earlier.

John Bercow: The points that the hon. Gentleman makes are fair. I readily acknowledge that I am very late to the issue. All that I ask him to recognise is that after discovering the error of my earlier ways, I have spent the last four and a half years on the course of discovery of the merits of sexual equality.

Chris Bryant: I am more than happy to put it on the record that the hon. Gentleman has been one of the most assiduous campaigners on the issue since I entered this place, and for some considerable time before. After confession there is always a period of penance, and I fear that the hon. Gentleman is still at that stage.
	The Bill, when it has been changed back to its original form, will be about loving, same-sex couples, who want to make a commitment to one another and who accept not only the rights that civil partnership will give them, but its responsibilities. I know that each of the three parts of that sentence is difficult for some of the people who oppose the Bill. Some people believe that because love is ordained by God, it is impossible for same-sex couples to love one another. I defy them to meet some of the people I know, who have lived together for many years, in sickness and in health, and have provided one another, and sometimes children in their care, with the kind of love and support from which many other families could learn much. If they still said that same-sex couples could not love one another, they would be blind in their hearts.
	There are also people who believe that same-sex couples who love one another cannot make a commitment to one another. That is a vital point; it is made by those who believe that the Bill will, somehow or other, undermine marriage. I simply do not see that point. I do not see how giving rights to one set of people would undermine the rights of others. Indeed, I have always believed as a Christian that the whole point of love is that it should be based on commitment. The Bill allows people to make a public statement of commitment to one another and stand by it. That must be something that not only those who have a liberal attitude to life but every Christian in the land can support.
	The third part of the sentence that some people will find difficult to accept is that loving same-sex couples who want to make a commitment to one another will be prepared to accept rights and responsibilities. Let us face it, there will be same-sex couples who have lived together for many years but do not want to form civil partnerships because they bring with them a set of responsibilities. There will be those who will be troubled by the fact that they will lose some financial benefits; that they will not be able to claim all the benefits to which they have up to now been entitled as two individuals; that they will be treated as a couple. I suspect that they, just like those who intend to be married according to the rites of the Church of England, will not enter into civil partnerships lightly but after sober reflection. That is another strong point in favour of the Bill.
	Of course there will be people who will think, I may be in a relationship, but I can call time on it at the flick of a switch. If I enter into a civil partnership, we will have to follow a legal process in order to separate. Of course that will create further responsibilities for those who enter civil partnerships.
	The Bill is also about rectifying a series of injustices. Many hon. Members have referred to the fact that partners who have been together for many years and looked after each other at home in sickness and in health find that when one partner goes into hospital they suddenly lose the right to have any say over what medical support is provided.
	When I was curate in High Wycombe, I used to visit patients in the local hospital. It was not uncommon to meet people who had been prevented by the parents of their partner even from visiting the person whom they loved and had lived with for many years. This was at the time when HIV/AIDS was new and many people did not have much understanding of it. Many parents blamed the illness on their son's partner. I am glad to say that the world has moved on for many families, but still that injustice exists.
	The injustice is compounded if there is a death. The bereaved partner is often excluded from the funeral arrangements. I have conducted countless funerals that the partner was not even allowed to attend, and many at which the partner was forced to sit right at the back and not take part, and no mention was made of the relationship. Sometimes the bereaved partners had to have separate ceremonies because the families took precedence over the partner. That was caused by bigotry in many cases, and it led to injustice that was allowed by the law.
	As other hon. Members have mentioned, many bereaved partners are made homeless. They may be unable to inherit their own home without penalty, but that applies to only 5 per cent. of estates. Many find that they cannot carry on the tenancy that was in their partner's name. Similarly, survivors have had no rights to a partner's pension. That has been a significant issue for many lesbian couples. Two women living together may have child care responsibilities. One of them may not work throughout her economically active life and reach retirement age without having acquired any pensionable service of her own. Bearing in mind the fact that many women are paid considerably less than men, the issue of poverty and rectifying injustice is important. Similarly, same-sex couples are treated differently in law from married couples when it comes to providing evidence in court. We should right that injustice because it puts another strain on relationships that is not there for married couples.
	Domestic violence laws apply differently to same-sex and married couples. That is another injustice that we should put right in the Bill. There was a time when it was presumed that, somehow or other, a same-sex couple could not have been violent to each other; but of course, that is a major issue, not only between two men, but between two women. We should ensure that that injustice is put right.
	The greatest injustice of the lot is that people have no recognition of the fact that they are two people who live together, sharing their lives. The Bill will put right that injustice.
	I want to say a few words about the Lords amendmentsan issue which has been rehearsed at some length already this afternoon. I noted that, in the House of Lords, one of the obsessions of some Tory Members was with inheritance tax. I confessthis is one of the few partisan points that I will makethat having watched a lot of the Tory party conference last week, I was bewildered at how obsessed the Tory party is with inheritance. I am not sure whether that is because they all form part of the 5 per cent. whose estates might fall liable to inheritance tax, or because they are worried about dying off, given that they are so elderly. Either way, the inheritance tax issue is one of the largest red herringsin fact, it is a red cod or a red tuna fishin the middle of the Bill. I refer to how those amendments relate not to same-sex couples, but to carers, and to the speech by the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton.

Alan Duncan: Let us be frank about this. Does the hon. Gentleman not appreciate the fact that two people who have shared their lives, not necessarily in a sexual union as in the Bill, may face problems when one partner dies, either with the tenancy or ownership of a house, because of inheritance tax, and that it is as well, separate from the Bill, to try to find a way to remedy that?

Chris Bryant: There may be situations in which the hon. Gentleman is right, but the inheritance tax issue is a red herring when applied directly to the Bill, except in so far as it applies to same-sex partners, where we ought to rectify the problem now.
	I believe that those who tabled the amendments in the Lords were seeking to wreck the Bill. That is not to say that everyone who voted for those amendments did so to wreck the Bill. They did so ill-advisedly because those amendments would not even rectify the injustice that they believed to exist. As the hon. Member for Buckingham has said, those amendments would not improve the situation of carers. In fact, it would make their situation far worse in many cases.
	We have only to look at the bona fides or the track records of those who tabled the amendments in the Lords. Lord Tebbit's views on homosexuality are extremely well known. He aired them on the Today programme, when I heard one of the most bizarre things that I have heard in all my life: he said that one of the major causes of childhood obesity in this country was the Government's promotion of buggery. That was one of the most extraordinary leaps. It even put the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) into deep shock. So we know Lord Tebbit's bona fides.
	Baroness O'Cathain's views on homosexuality seem similar. She has taken up the mantle that was cast upon her, Elijah-like, by Baroness Young in opposing section 28. So we know exactly what her aim was; she declared it very openly in moving her amendments. Incidentally, I thought she was wrong to press them to a vote because that showed that they were not about simply airing the issues, but specifically about trying to wreck the Bill. Let us be honest: some people think that homosexuality is wrong and a sin.
	I am somewhat saddened, incidentally, that several hon. Members have immediately left the Chamber after speaking in the debate, without listening to the rest of the debate. That is a rather surprising change in custom in the House.
	The amendments tabled in the Lords are particularly maladroit. They would be of no use to carers. Clause 2(1) is particularly bizarre in its wording. When I started to read it, I almost expected it to end with the words, and they must be accompanied by both their grandparents, because it seems to take the proverbial mickey out of the rest of the Bill. The curious thing is that that amendment was allowed to be tabled because it is wholly without the scope of the Bill. I am surprised, on a constitutional point, that it was allowed to be tabled.
	There are a number of aspects of the Bill in addition to the wrecking Lords amendments that should be reformed. The Bill currently presumes that there will be no ceremony, but I agree with hon. Members who think that it would be entirely appropriate for the two people who sign a civil partnership to make a statement to the effect that they are not legally barred from entering a civil partnership and that they consent to doing so. Beyond that, they should be entitled to have whatever ceremony they wish, which would parallel the provisions in the Marriage Act 1949 and thus make sense.

Peter Pike: Is my hon. Friend aware that changes are currently taking place to the registration of birth and deaths, but that consideration of marriage registration is being deferred so that note can be taken of the final state of the Bill? The type of ceremony to which he refers may well be considered.

Chris Bryant: My hon. Friend makes a good point that I was about to address.
	It is also a mistake to prohibit a religious service of any kind at the signing of a civil partnership. The provision in the Bill is virtually identical to section 45(2) of the 1949 Act, which states that no religious service shall be used at the solemnisation of a civil marriage. However, that provision is wrong in itself because it means that many registrars refuse to allow couples who want to marry in a civil ceremony rather than a church to use any religious readings. Although many people would like readings such as 1 Corinthians 13 or something from Khalil Gibran, registrars refuse to allow such words to be used. I would like the provision to be removed from the Bill and section 45(2) of the 1949 Act to be similarly repealed.

Edward Leigh: The hon. Gentleman is arguing his point of view powerfully, but I am not sure that both sets of Front Benchers will welcome his remarks, because we were informed earlier that neither were in favour of gay marriages and that we were not considering a gay marriage Bill. However, the hon. Gentleman is eloquently arguing for exactly that, so people should realise that that would be the next step.

Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman is completely mistaken, and I hope that I do not have to repeat this too often. The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton made a good proposition about parallel lines. I do not want same-sex relationships to ape marriage in any senseseveral people have used the offensive phrasebecause they are different. Although the two share similar elements, they do not have to be identical, so the legal provisions should be distinct.

Tim Boswell: I have much sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's remarks. Does he agree that the nature of a real relationship might suggest that people will want it to be celebrated or blessed?

Chris Bryant: Indeed, and the hon. Gentleman prompts me to mention a third aspect of the Bill that I would like to change.
	There are churches and individual clergy in the Church of England and the Church of Scotland who would be happy to provide a blessing. There are clergy in many of the churches who would be more than desirous of the opportunity to hold a blessing in their churches. It is thus curious that the Bill will prohibit any kind of religious service or ceremony from taking place in religious premises. The provision's drafting is rather odd because some churches meet in gyms or halls and thus would not be covered by the current wording, so that might need tidying up. However, such matters are not ones of enormous principle and they can be debated in Committee.
	One remaining issue of principle is pensions. To put it simply, as others have already done, if Jean were to marry John next week, the full pensionable service of Jean since 1988 would be taken into consideration for his widower's pension if she should die. However, as things stand, if Jean and Janet were to form a civil partnership, the benefit would, according to Baroness Hollis, accrue only from the date of the Bill. I hope that the Government will manage over the next 10 days to offer surviving civil partners parity with widowers' pension arrangements. I hope that the Minister's words were tending in that direction and that they might tend even further in that direction by the end of the day or the end of next week.
	I note, incidentally, that as far as I can see, the only people for whom the Bill guarantees parity are the surviving civil partners of a Speaker of the House of Commons or the Prime Minister. I am not sure whether we have any particular idea in mind as to who either of those people will be in the near future, but I thought that that provision was rather curious.

Alan Duncan: The hon. Gentleman has just renewed my ambition.

Chris Bryant: It seems that it is the hon. Gentleman's ambition to have a civil partner to whom he can grant a surviving pension, although it is not clear whether that would be as the Speaker or the Prime Minister.
	Having borne those issues in mind, I wholeheartedly welcome the cross-party support. That is important. The issue is not acrimonious in the country and many people will benefit from it. However, I suspect that only a Labour Government would introduce such a measure

Richard Allan: indicated dissent.

Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman suggests that the Liberals might have introduced it, but that is stretching credulity too far because we would have to have a Liberal Democrat Government in the first place.
	I am proud of the Labour Government's progressive record. To be honest, it is without peer in Europe. They abolished clause 28, introduced an equal age of consent and used the Parliament Act to enforce it. They legislated for joint adoption by gay couples, outlawed workforce discrimination and brought in a new category of homophobic hate crimes. The Government should be congratulated on that.
	In the end, the Bill is about recognising a simple fact of life. It is not about setting up a new lifestyle, as the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) claimed. It is not about persuading people to be gay or lesbian. It is not about proliferating homosexuality because, in truth, homosexuality is not something that we can proliferate. It is not something that we can be persuaded into. It is not an illness that we can catch. It is not a cancer that we can have excised. For roughly one in 10 people in this land it is simply a fact of life that they have to come to terms with. Now, at lastthank Godthe law will recognise the fact of loving homosexual relationships. The whole of the UK will come to terms with a world in which two men or two women can love one another and make a commitment to one another, for richer and for poorer.

Charles Hendry: It is a great privilege to participate in the debate, which has been one of the most dignified and enlightening that I can remember. I am pleased to give my full support and backing to the Bill for the reasons that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) summed up in his final sentence. He almost could have given up the first 23 minutes of his speech and just used that sentence in an extremely powerful and effective way.

Chris Bryant: That would be very unlikely.

Charles Hendry: I realise that that would have been entirely out of character.
	The Bill is about fairness and justice. That is why it is so important. When I got married, like everyone else who has got married, I became eligible for certain rights and entitlements and, to go with that, certain responsibilities as well. So when one of us dies, the surviving spouse is entitled to inherent the family home and the family assets without being subject to inheritance tax. We can benefit from the other one's pension contributions, particularly in the circumstances of death. For those people who live in social housing, the tenancy would transfer automatically from one to the other without any question of whether that was right.
	Marriage also brings with it certain entitlements that are so self-evident that it is not possible to conceive of the position being otherwise. For example, in the event of one spouse being injured in an accident, the other is entitled to give their opinion on what should happen and what is the appropriate medical treatment; they are entitled to visit their spouse in hospital without anyone being able to say, You shouldn't be hereyou're not entitled. A spouse can act as an active next of kin: my wife and I have to fill in a form for our children at school saying who should be called in the event of an accident, and we name each other as next of kin. That, to me, is so self-evidently right that it is inconceivable that it could be done in any other way.

Peter Pike: Civil partnerships do not yet exist legally. If a partner in a relationship that will be eligible for a civil partnership were to die in a traffic accident today, his or her partner would have no right to make decisions in respect of organ donation. A person who has clearly indicated their wishes might have those wishes totally disregarded, even though their partner wants to adhere to those wishes.

Charles Hendry: I agree entirely. That sort of anomaly is not just unfair but absolutely barbaric. People who have committed themselves to one another over many years in an established loving relationship should not be denied the opportunity to be involved in such fundamental decisions. I simply cannot understand why those rights that I as a married man take entirely for granted, as does every married person, should not be extended to same-sex couples who have demonstrated the same degree of commitment and endorsed it by entering into a legally binding arrangement.
	To correct that position is not, as some have suggested, to give extra rights to same-sex couples; it is simply to give them the same rights as heterosexual married couples who have made the same legally binding commitments to one another. Particularly powerful to me is one of the phrases that has been uttered by the Minister today, which was also used by Lord Alli in the House of Lords debate:
	Same-sex couples . . . are . . . invisible in the eyes of the law. [Official Report, House of Lords, 12 May 2004; Vol. 661, c. GC121.]
	That is not right, it is not how the law should work and it is an issue that we should address.
	The whole House is concerned that many people have become disengaged from politics and from Parliament. One of the reasons that has happened to such an extent is that people see Parliament as too remotethey see it as a place that does not understand and is not interested in how they live their lives, and is too often involved in legislation that harms their interests as individual citizens.

John Bercow: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's observations on the disconnect between Parliament and public. Does he not think that an eloquent and worrying illustration of that trend was expressed in the recent Populace survey published in The Times, which showed, in contrast to some of the antediluvian attitudes that still prevail in this Chamber, that 75 per cent. of respondents aged between 18 and 30 said yes, of course gay couples should have exactly the same rights as heterosexual couples?

Charles Hendry: My hon. Friend makes an entirely appropriate comment and one that I was about to make when he intervened. Our hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) said that there was a generational dimension to the debate. Young people in their 20s, 30s and 40s want this House to look like the society in which they live. They want it to be a place where racism, sexism and issues of sexuality have no part to playa place where we simply get on and discuss the issues as grown-up individuals, rather than as people who are stuck in the past. An entire generation cannot understand a Parliament or parties that do not think in that way. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) said that in years to come people will read this debate and say, I wish I'd been there. I disagree: I think that they will read it and say, What was all that about? They will not understand why on earth we had to have this debate. The world in which they live is understanding and accepting. To them, debates about whether such things are right or wrong belong to an era to which they do not relate.
	I echo the hon. Lady's praise for Stonewall. The dignified way in which its members have conducted the debate, using quiet persuasion and showing great understanding, is one of the reasons it has moved forward as it has. We all owe Stonewall a great debt of gratitude.

Gerald Howarth: Is my hon. Friend aware that Stonewall brought enormous pressure to bear on British Airways to disown our noble Friend Baroness O'Cathain, who is a director of BA? She may be forced out because of the views that she honourably and honestly expressed in another place. Does my hon. Friend think that that was a good thing for Stonewall to have done?

Charles Hendry: Shareholders will decide whether our noble Friend is the right person to hold a position on that board. My hon. Friend says that she may be forced out. It is entirely legitimate in a democracy to make people aware of the views and the comments that others have expressed.
	I shall take head-on the suggestion that is made, especially in the media, that the Bill confers unfair advantages on same-sex couples or that it panders to the gay agenda. In my role as shadow Minister with responsibility for young people, I have met different youth groups throughout the country. Sometimes they have been working in inner cities, sometimes they have been involved in colleges and schools and sometimes they have been working with young gays and lesbians. The most shocking things that I have heard have been about the abuse that young people face.
	I heard a young lad in Brighton describe how he was beaten up in the streets simply because he was out with his partner. He was not doing anything that anyone in the heterosexual community would find it difficult to do. He was beaten up merely because he was out with his partner. I heard from a young kid in Leeds who had suffered constant homophobic bullying in school. When he, as an individual, finally fought back he was the one who was excluded. That was abominable. He was the victim. Bullied children are always the victims and they need Members of this place to stand up for them.
	As people grow up they might find that they face difficulties and discrimination merely because of their sexualitysomething with which they are not able to deal. There are those who have to go through the trauma of telling their families and friends that they are gay or lesbian, as a result of which they are often thrown out of their homes.
	In my old role as chairman of the all-party group on homelessness I heard of 16-year-olds who had been kicked out of their homes because their parents were not prepared to accept their sexuality. I cannot understand people facing abuse throughout their daily lives because of their sexuality. We are right to address these issues, and we must put a stop to them.
	People who happen to be gay or lesbian and play a role in public life end up finding that they can be gratuitously insulted because of their sexuality. Brian Paddick is the Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner. He is a fine and outstanding police officer. I often feel that the media think that they can give him a kicking and criticise him because he is an openly gay policeman. Such attitudes belong to a bygone era, and the Bill is part of kicking them into history.

David Cairns: The hon. Gentleman is making an outstanding contribution to the debate.
	We need to clarify what we are talking about. Some people listening to us might think, What are a few insults? Everyone receives a few insults. If you are a bit fat, you get a few insults. If you are losing your hair, you get a few insults. Perhaps people should get a bit tougher about these things.
	Will the hon. Gentleman join me in congratulating the organisers of the MOBO awards, who said this year that records that incite murder and violence against gay people are completely unacceptable? We have been congratulating Stonewalland deservedly so. I never thought that I would say this publicly, but I think that we should congratulate Peter Tatchell on what he has done in exposing the reggae artists who peddle this violence and hate and on forcing MOBO to have a belated but welcome change of heart.

Charles Hendry: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Had those lyrics referred to the same incitement of violence towards old people, black people or women, the police would have taken action; they would have intervened. I am pleased that the MOBO awards organisers decided to take action and to say that such lyrics were not acceptable.
	I wish to look at some important contributions that the Bill will make. The issue of inheritance has been discussed, and I am grateful to Stonewall for providing examples that bring it to life. Chris is in his 60s and has been with his partner for 40 years. After his retirement, he was told that he had renal cancer. As if it were not enough to fight a virulent form of cancer, he found that in the event of his death his partner would be forced to sell the home that they had shared for 25 years to pay death duties and other taxes. It is utterly wrong that someone who is fighting a terrible illness should have additional worries about whether his partner of many years will be treated fairly.
	Stonewall also told us about the next of kin issue and the way in which people are affected. When Andrew's partner died, for example, he was excluded from decisions, as his partner's parents had never accepted him as their son's partner; they removed personal effects, including photographs, and Andrew was denied access to them. They sold the flat in which the couple had lived, and Andrew had no right whatsoever under legislation to challenge their decision. That is barbaric, and it is not right in any society. If the Bill ends such practices, we should all be happy.
	Kate had a history of depression, and had been with her partner, Jo, for 10 years. Jo, however, found it virtually impossible to persuade the NHS to recognise her as Kate's next of kin and encountered homophobic reactions among some of Kate's relatives. In the end, she was forced to seek a power of attorney to get the rights to which she believed she was entitled.
	We should all, therefore, welcome the fundamental changes that the Bill will bring about. I agree, however, with many of my colleagues and other Members that the amendments made in the Lords were a mistake, and should be reversed in Committee. I accept that people are anxious about the interests of interdependent relatives and other people who are living together, but the Bill is not the place to address those issues. I know that other Members wish to speak, so I shall conclude shortly, but the only people who will gain from the anomalies of such relationships are accountants, who will discover a new wheeze to prevent their rich clients from paying taxes. They will say, We could advise you to move to the Bahamas or set up a family trust. However, we think you should encourage your 18-year-old son to live with his grandfather. When he is 30, he will inherit everything free of tax. The only problem, of course, is that if he dies soon afterwards and leaves the money to his stepson, who is also his father, a huge amount of tax will be payable. That will make a mockery of the system, so it should be swept away because it will not improve the lot of carers, whose position must be recognised and improved, or people who are in similar relationships for other reasons. The right place to address such concerns is a future Finance Bill, and I hope that the shadow Treasury team will introduce measures to achieve such changes.
	Pensions are another concern. I am encouraged by the Minister's remarks that the Government will reconsider the issue, and I hope that in her winding-up speech she will say that the Government will introduce amendments to tackle the problem. If she does not, when the Bill goes into Committee, and if I am lucky enough to serve on it, I shall support measures that require equality provisions in public sector pensions to be made retrospective. That is entirely right and appropriate. If we say that we believe in equality only if it does not come with a price tag, that is not a genuine belief in equality. Equality sometimes has a cost attached to it, and we must recognise that and take it into account.
	One of the reasons I am a Conservative is that I believe passionately in the rights of the individual, who should make decisions about their life and the way in which they want to live it. Governments should not become involved in such decisions unless they have a negative impact on other people. We should not be imposing a barrier to other people's happinessand for what reason? Should we do so because people are living in a stable, loving relationship in which they have chosen to make a commitment for the rest of their lives as far as they can see? For heterosexuals, that arrangement is called marriage, but for same-sex couples, that option is not available. We must ensure through this Bill that such couples have the chance to have the same opportunities and rights.
	We are dealing with an outdated restriction that is, at best, unfair and, in respect of next of kin, is barbaric and inhuman. I hope that we can take the issue of sexuality out of politics. I do not believe that there is such a thing as a gay vote. I think that parties can drive away the gay vote just as they can drive away the women's vote, the elderly vote or the black votemy party has tried to do it quite effectively over the yearsbut there is no single issue that it can be said will win over the gay vote. However, addressing issues such as those in the Bill will ensure that those who are gay, lesbian or bisexual can look at issues in the round and vote for the party that they believe in because it is advocating the right policies on health, education and the economy, rather than make their choice because they think that sexuality continues to divide the parties.
	One of the most important quotes from the memorable speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) is his remark that the Government should intervene to stop people hurting each other, but not to stop people loving each other. Good people have been hurt for too long by the situation under the law as it currently exists. It is time that that was stopped, and this Bill is a chance to stop it.

Martin Smyth: It is a privilege to be called, even at this late hour, and to follow the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), whose speech must have given great comfort to the Labour party with regard to the forthcoming election. I am sure that his remarks about driving away voters will be in the headlines.
	The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is not the only one in the House to have married people. Having done 25 years of parish work, I am possibly well ahead of him. He spoke of love, but we must bear it in mind that there are many types of love, so we must be careful about bandying that word around without thinking of its implications.
	The other word that arises is equality. I was fascinated by the fact that we are all carried away with the concept of equality. I could not help but think of the experience of a Presbyterian colleague of mine in a Samaritan hospital in Belfast, where one of his parishioners was in deep post-natal depression. Psychologists, psychiatrists and doctors were unable to do anything to help her. My colleague spent about 45 minutes with her trying to help. Finally, with a sense of despair, he said, Well, we'll have a wee prayer before I go; these things come to all of us. At that, the woman started to laugh.
	We are not equal. There are different issues, and one of the issues that we are debating is the fact that civil partnership is not merely civil partnership; it is giving recognition of something that some of us hold dear. I happen to be one of thoseperhaps I am the only one in the Housewho speaks having been put into the den of lions. A medical doctor and I had been invited to appear on the Kelly show in Belfast to deal with the question of homosexuality. We understood that two people on the panel would take the point of view of homosexuality, while the other two would take a different line. We thought that the audience would be a normal mixed audience, but it consisted completely of homosexual people. I had the privilege, for which I am thankful, of receiving letters of apology from members of that community, thanking me for the way in which I dealt with the programme and apologising for the way in which some people responded and acted.
	When we talk about bigotry, we must remember that it is not one-sided. Even today, certain innuendos have been cast at some who may take a different line. It shows the kind of world in which we livethe real worldwhen an outside body tries to put pressure on a person who holds different views from it in order to remove that person from a directorship.
	The hon. Member for Rhondda may have made one or two mistakes. There are different forms of theology, but I have never believed that penitence comes after repentance.

Seamus Mallon: I watched the programme to which the hon. Gentleman referred. If we are ever to reach a settlement in Northern Ireland, it must be based on full equality and full justice. How can my political beliefs or those of the hon. Gentleman, however deeply and sincerely felt, prevent full equality and full justice for people because of their sexual orientation?

Martin Smyth: I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but we should bear it in mind that politics represents society. The hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) made the point that 86 per cent. of people did not approve of the Bill before it was applied to Northern Ireland, but the Bill was suddenly extended to Northern Ireland on the ground of equality. For years, I pleaded for this House to pass legislation to give equal rights to disabled people in Northern Ireland, but it was regularly kicked into touch. If we deal with equality, we should do so across the board.
	I am not convinced that the Bill will provide the rights mentioned by the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry). The financial issues could have been tackled differently, but Governments of both persuasions will always hesitate to introduce legislation that increases expense and makes them unpopular with taxpayers, and we must bear that issue in mind.
	The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) discussed goods and services and referred to Sandals. Have we reached the stage at which we introduce legislation that deals not with moral law, but with people's preferences, and that compels people to act in certain ways? If we go down that road, the legislation that we introduce will ultimately prove divisive. I have no time for homophobia, which is prevalent in all societies, but I am not convinced that the Bill will actually advance our response to young folk who hold such attitudes. Thankfully, many young people are beginning to react against the commercial side of sexuality, which is brainwashing our society.

David Cairns: The hon. Gentleman is sliding dangerously close to a view of homosexuality and young people from which I urge him to back off, because it will do his argument no good whatsoever. To return to his point about moral judgments, personal preferences and the law, does he accept that we legislate in a variety of other areas? If I ran a bed and breakfast and decided that I did not want to accommodate black people, it would be against the law, which we accept. Personal preferences and the law cross over, and we are here to make choices and pass legislation. We cannot stand back and say, We should not get involved, because that is why we are here.

Martin Smyth: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, which concerned a private boarding house.
	We may discover that we are turning citizens into criminals and that we are putting people out of business and out of work, which may lead them to draw unemployment benefit.
	The heart of the argument was expounded in Belfast by a representative of the homosexual community who said that in his opinion there is a difference between marriage, which is a sacrament, and civil partnership. There are those of us who believe that marriage is not a sacrament but an ordinance of God, and we wonder whether the state can continue to try to replicate the pattern that God has ordained.

Gerald Howarth: This has been an interesting debate. I do not intend to disappoint my hon. Friends the Members for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), for Wealden (Charles Hendry) or for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan). I oppose the Bill in principle and feel just as passionately about that as those who have spoken in favour of it. I salute the hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Borrow), who made a courageous speech with great dignity, and I respect him for his position. I hope that the House, which has overwhelmingly declared that it is in favour of the Bill, will nevertheless recognise that some of us have equally passionate beliefs on the other side of the argument. I am afraid that simply to throw epithets at us does the House no credit. Serious issues are involved and they deserve to be addressed.
	Let me say at the outset that there is no question that any hon. Member would tolerate bullying of any description. The activities that my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden described are unacceptable to anybody, but they are nothing to do with the Bill. The fact that action has not been taken is regrettable, and those who have failed to do so should be upbraided.

David Borrow: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could answer the question that I put to the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe): does the Bill contain parts that he can accept and parts that he cannot, or is he opposed to the whole concept? Many right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned specific injustices in the current situation. Which of those injustices would he be prepared to address?

Gerald Howarth: I am opposed to the Bill in principle, because I am opposed to the creation of civil partnerships, but I shall turn later to some of the aspects that I readily understand.
	So strong are my feelings about the principle of this matter that I have made common cause with Peter Tatchell, whose name has been mentioned. I supported Peter Tatchell when he was arrested by the Belgian authorities for rightly protesting against Mr. Mugabe when he visited Brussels. I have some wonderful letters from Peter Tatchell on file. The idea that people who are dealt with unfavourably by the police or bullied by their peers is acceptable is wrong and must be resisted with all the passion that we can muster.

John Bercow: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Gerald Howarth: Very briefly, because I know that two of my hon. Friends want to speak.

John Bercow: Of course I readily accept that my hon. Friend is opposed to bullying of, or violence against, gays. He will recall, however, that he is on record as having said on 10 February 2000 that he believes that homosexual relations between consenting adults should be permissible only with the consent of both sets of parents, which is a somewhat difficult state of affairs to achieve. Does he not accept that if the political culture and the law fail to respect the existence of gay couples, it is likely that discrimination against them, potentially including violence, will follow? As the late Enoch Powell would have said, that is so blindingly obvious that only an extraordinarily clever person could fail to see it.

Gerald Howarth: I shall assume that my hon. Friend thinks that I am extremely clever, as I know that he is a very generous man. I do not accept his point, and he is unfair in adducing those remarks to me. I cannot remember exactly what I said on 10 February, but obviously my hon. Friend, with his encyclopaedic mind, can.
	Hon. Members, including Front Benchers, are overwhelmingly in favour of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton is a veritable pocket battleship, and he made a very good speech. I did not agree with it, but I entirely respect his right to make it, and I am delighted that he did so in his personal capacity. If the chips were down and we were under fire, I would happily share a trench with my hon. Friend. I hope that he will take comfort from that.
	If there is an overwhelming view in this Chamber, I do not believe the view outside to be the same. This is a highly controversial issue, and there are people outside who do not agree with civil partnerships. Furthermore, those people will be astonished that the Bill is being rammed through the House in the space of about 10 days. That is not the way to treat an issue of such major importance. Such people regard this Bill as gay marriage in all but name, and they simply think that that is wrong. They are our constituents, they are decent people

Douglas Hogg: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Gerald Howarth: If my right hon. and learned Friend does not mind, I will not, as I know that two of my hon. Friends still wish to participate in the debate.
	These are decent people that I am talking about. They are not homophobes, bigots or any of the other epithets so readily thrown about. They are tolerant and generally neither inquire nor want to be told what other people do in the privacy of their own home. However, they recognise that our laws ought to have a moral basis. They also recognise that the law sends a moral signal, for good or ill.
	The Government also believe that, which is part of their reason for pressing ahead with the measure. The plan to create civil partnerships was first announced in December 2002, when the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche)I am sorry that she is not in her place at the moment, although she spoke earlierwho was then Minister for Social Exclusion, indicated that legal change was intended to force cultural change. She said:
	It would send a powerful message about the acceptability of same-sex relationships and about the unacceptability of the homophobia still far too prevalent in our society.
	There is no room for middle ground in that statement: one either regards same-sex relationships as acceptable or one is homophobic.
	People often say that one cannot use the law to force one's beliefs on other people, but clearly the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green does not accept that, and nor does her successor, the Deputy Minister for Women and Equality, who is in charge of civil partnerships and responsible for the Bill today. She issued a consultation paper in June last year. In her foreword, she announced that thousands of homosexual couples are
	living in exactly the same way as any other family.
	Exactly the same way? That assertion is disputable.

Alan Duncan: Is it my hon. Friend's view that those who have religious objections to the Billthe objections are primarily religiousare entitled to and should use the power of the House to impose those same religious views on people who may have no faith and who may not share those same religious views?

Gerald Howarth: My view is that this is a Christian country and that all our laws are grounded in Christian tradition. As my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) said quite fairly, there is a difference of interpretation, and as time moves on, perhaps even more so. I am afraid, however, that I take the view that this is an overwhelmingly Christian country, that our laws must be founded on the Christian faith, and that it is right that bishops should sit in the other place. I support that.
	There is no doubt that the Government are on a crusade. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence said in a debate on the armed forces that some measure was part of the Government's equality agenda. They want to force a cultural change on our society. To take lightly the deeply held convictions of so many people about the nature of marriage, and to try to force them to recant, is oppressive and dictatorial.
	The issue is the nature of marriage, no matter what the Deputy Minister for Women and Equality may say. She has repeated the Government line, which is shared by my hon. Friends, that civil partnerships have nothing to do with marriage. I submit that that assertion has all the credibility of the Iraq dossier. It is gay marriage in all but name. Ministers cited the case in Brighton, where what has been called a pink wedding list is apparently being drawn up. Weddings are ceremonies that are associated with marriage

John Bercow: So what?

Gerald Howarth: My hon. Friend says from a sedentary position, So what?, but the Government have asserted all along that civil partnerships are not gay marriage. I am sure that he fully accepts the concept of gay marriage, but the Government have said that this measure is completely different, although the Minister quoted with approval what was going on in Brighton. I shall not repeat the various clauses in the Bill that mirror exactly the provisions in relation to marriage, because we have discussed those at length.
	All the newspapers call this gay marriage. I rarely quote The Guardian, but I shall at least quote what it said on 30 June 2003:
	The tabloids may go wild over 'gay marriages' and New Labour will no doubt shrink timidly from the phrase. But in truth, it will be a legal marriage in all but name.
	Here in the Chamber, we must pretend that this has nothing to do with marriage in order to perpetrate a deceit on the public, but in fact, not everyone in the Labour party is on message. I gather that in March, the Labour website ran a picture of the Bill covered in confetti to illustrate the similarity to marriage.
	It has been said frequently throughout the debate that the case for civil partnerships exists because the current law is unfair, and my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden and others have rightly drawn attention to people who found themselves in some difficulty and experienced injustice. I understand how they must feel, but as my noble Friend Baroness O'Cathain pointed out in the other place, there are other injustices as well. Her amendments were designed to draw to the public's and Parliament's attention the fact that the Bill sought to remedy one set of injustices without remedying another. It is no good certain of my hon. Friends and others who support the Bill saying, Well, those are separate matters and we will deal with them later. These people feel that their injustice should have been dealt with. They wonder why homosexual couples should be treated favourably in this way, when the problems that they face have not been resolved.
	Peers of all partiesdespite the Labour party's efforts, I am told, to get their Members in the other place to vote against the amendmenttook the view that if the Bill is meant to be about helping people living in co-dependent relationships, it should apply to two sisters and other family members who live together as adults for more than 12 years, as has been discussed. The noble Prelate the Bishop of Rochester said:
	If the intention of the Bill is really to address unfairness . . . rather than introduce social engineering through the back door, the Minister, the Government and noble Lords will have no hesitation in considering the amendments with sympathy.[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 June 2004; Vol. 662, c. 1367.]
	I suspect that it is less a case of the amendments being considered unworkable and more a case of their being unwanted. If the Government were serious about dealing with them, they would introduce proposals to ensure that the Bill was changed in such a way as to make the amendments workable.
	Of course, certain of the difficulties that have been mentioned by Members from all parts of the House could be dealt with under existing law. For example, on inheriting tenancies, homosexual couples already have legal rights that other co-dependants do not. In 2003, the Court of Appeal held that two homosexuals should be treated as living together as husband and wife for the purpose of a statutory tenancy. The court gave the survivor a right to inherit his partner's flat.
	I accept that genuine difficulties exist, and I should point out to the hon. Member for South Ribble that, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), I feel that there are issues that ought to be addressed. But I do not believe that this Bill is the means by which to do so. Setting up an alternative to marriageor a parallel to it, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton suggestsis not the answer.
	Let us be in no doubt: we are legislating for what Baroness Scotland accepted in the other place is a tiny fraction5 or 10 per cent.of a small proportion of the population. I remind the House of an old adage that may seem harsh, but is not intended to be so: sad cases make bad law. To legislate on the basis of the cases mentioned, and to create a whole new raft of law, consisting of 383 pages[Interruption.] I repeat: these are sad cases, involving people who are in difficulty. The expression that I use is familiar in legal circles, as the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Ann McKechin), who is a lawyer, will know.
	Many of the problems in today's society arise from the dysfunctional nature of the family and the breakdown of family life. We desperately need to do all we can to support and sustain marriage. I am opposed to the Bill because it sends out a false signal, particularly to young people, that somehow a homosexual relationship is an equally valid lifestyle. We shall see all the books coming out to support schools in their personal and social education, which will encourage children to believe that. I do not share that view; it is not the right thing to do.
	The Bill permits children, whom virtually all the authorities concede should be brought up in a natural household of a man and woman, to be brought up in another form of household. Finally, the Bill creates inequalities to which Parliament should not be party, so I shall oppose it.

Angela Watkinson: I should like to make two points briefly so that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) can also contribute to the debate. I intend to vote against the Bill and I shall briefly explain my two reasons for doing so.
	First, the Bill is unfair. It purports to overcome inequality, but it introduces inequality where there was none before. It gives preference and advantages in law to homosexual couples over and above other same-sex couples, which is unjustifiable.
	I listened to the opening speeches and noticed that the Minister repeatedly used the term homosexual, so it is clear that the Bill's provisions are intended for homosexuals, though I cannot remember whether the precise terms gay or lesbian were used. I cannot claim to have read every page of the Bill, which is rather a weighty tome, but I saw no reference to homosexuality in it. It refers simply to same-sex couples, so I am left wondering whether platonic same-sex couples are excluded.
	The impression was created that two women who have been lifelong friends living in the same home and sharing a life together would not be subject to the Bill's provisions. I hope that the Minister will clarify that point, because she gave the impression that the Bill would exclusively benefit homosexual couples. If that is not the case, it puts a whole different slant on the matter. In any case, who apart from the two involved can possibly know the nature of a personal relationship? Some heterosexual opposite-sex marriages are platonic and two homosexual people can live together and share a home even though they are not involved in a personal relationship with one another. There are other variations on the theme. I therefore ask the Minister how eligibility for civil partnerships will be established, given that it is virtually impossible to know the real relationship between any two people.
	The civil partnership provisions, as presented by the Minister, are unfair. Unamended, the scheme will apply only to gays and lesbians, and other house sharers will be excluded. Would two elderly ladies living together for most of their lives have to affect to be homosexual in order to gain the advantages in law as described in the Bill? Would one of two sisters sharing a house over a long period incur inheritance tax when the other dies? Under the Bill, if a homosexual couple registered their partnership, even after a few months, one would inherit tax free if a partner died. That amounts to an injustice where there was none before.
	I suggest that the Bill is unnecessary. Let us get back to its purpose. If it is to overcome injustices regarding tax benefits, pensions and so forth, I concede that it is right to deal with such injustices, but I am not persuaded that the Bill is the proper device for doing so. If the purpose is purely to overcome those injustices, civil partnerships per se are unnecessary. If it is to provide legal recognition for civil partnerships by creating a pseudo-marriage, that amounts to an entirely different purpose. The traditional family provides the basis for a stable society and the procreation of children. The Bill rests on the view that marriage and same-sex partnerships are equivalent or the same, but I do not believe that they are.

Edward Leigh: It is difficult to summarise the debate from the point of view of the mediaeval wing of the Conservative party. We are accused of many thingsof being homophobes and the rest of itbut I believe that we have a point of view that we are perfectly entitled to express. I must admit that I was surprised by the suggestion made by one of my hon. Friends in his closing remarks that the Conservative party as a whole was trying to turn away women, or people who are black or gay. Nothing is further from the truth. We are the party of all Britons. We want people to vote Conservative because they believe in freedom, the nation state, strong defence, deregulation or any of the other things that conservatism is about. We have as much right to speak up as anyone else.
	Our present marriage laws discriminate against many people. Our existing law discriminates against gay people who wish to leave property to each other, but it also discriminates against sisters, uncles or nephews and many others who want to do the same. Yet it is not so much that the present law discriminates against those people as that it discriminates in favour of marriage. It is neutral about other relationships, but discriminates in favour of marriage because that is what has happened in every society and nation in history.
	On the walls of every register office, it is stated that marriage is about a permanent union between a man and wife, to the exclusion of everyone else. All through history, societies have taken the view that that was necessary, and it was John Locke who said that marriage was mankind's first society.
	Marriage is the building block of society. Over the centuries, Parliament has taken the view that we should discriminate in favour of marriage. We do not want to discriminate against anyone elsenot sisters, brothers, uncles, nephews, stepsons or grandfathers, grandsons or gay people. We want to discriminate in favour of the building block that is marriage.

John Bercow: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Edward Leigh: No, as I have been told that I have very little time.
	I have explained my concern about this Bill. We need a corpus of marriage law, and we have one. I have personal views about marriage. For many years, I have said that we must try to sustain it, just as I have argued against easier divorce laws, but that is a subject for another debate.
	We must now create another corpus of law, either with this Bill or with a Finance Bill, to relieve the unfair burden placed on people who have lived together a long time and who want to leave pension rights or property to each other, or who want to visit each other in hospital or enjoy all the other benefits that have been mentioned today. Whatever such a Bill might be calledthe Sharing of Long-Term Domicile Bill is one possibilityit would allow us to do what the Government want to do with this Bill.
	The Government have tried to pull our heart strings on this matter. We have heard powerful stories about people called Chris or Rex, and about people who have been living together for 40 years who want to leave their property to each other but who cannot. We realise that that is unfair in the modern world. It is unfair that sisters who have lived together for many years in a non-sexual relationship should be placed in such difficulty and it is a problem that we must address.
	I accept that the amendments passed by the House of Lords may be unworkable in their present form. I am trying to put my argument in an honest way but if the Government are serious about addressing anomalies that hit people who have been living together for a long time, they should use this Bill or the Finance Bill to introduce proposals that could work to help such people. The Bill as it stands does not provide that.
	We are not homophobes or anything like that, but we are saying that this Bill does not do what the Government seem to want it to do. We must be honest about these matters. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made an honest speech, in which he gave a powerful exposition of his point of view. There is no doubt that there are people in this House who believe that gay people should be allowed to go through a form of marriage. If they love each other and have made a commitment to each other, why should gay people be denied something called marriage when the rest of us are allowed it? However, a person would have to be utterly credulous to believe that, by enabling people to register a civil partnership at a register office and by providing that a long-term relationship can be ended only after it has suffered irredeemable breakdownin other words, by replicating what is contained in our ordinary marriage lawswe are not creating a form of gay marriage.
	Why cannot we be honest about it? It will come and the next step will be for the gay community to insistrightly, in their viewthat gay marriage be recognised, that it should be an offence to attack homosexuality and that it should be taught in schools on equal terms. That is the agenda. Let us not be mealy-mouthed about it. That is why the mediaeval wing of the Conservative party, as we have been described, is standing foursquare against the Bill and why we will vote against it tonight. We believe that by voting against the Bill, we send a powerful message that there are still people in this House who are prepared to stand up for traditional values because they believe passionately that such values are the building blocks of a just, fair and right society.

Tim Boswell: Back to reform, now. This has been a fascinating and full debate. It has spoken for itself and will need only reasonably crisp and succinct winding-up speeches. Indeed, there is no time for more.
	I shall draw on one or two speeches without, I hope, invidiousness, because they have all been of high quality. I was delighted by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) from the Front Bench. He spoke with great fervour, a round appreciation of the issues and clarity of mind. It was a good start from our side. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) spoke with great authority and commitment to the cause of equality generally and to the elimination of discrimination. She will not be surprised to learn that I agree with many of her sentiments, although not all of them in detail. It is important that we make social progress in this area and that my colleagues recognise that such progress has been made.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) made a distinguished speech and I also commend the passion and articulacy of my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow). As he occasionally admits in public, I can claim to have had a hand in his conversion, but I cannot be responsible for the ongoing consequences in relation to his speech this evening.
	The Conservative party will allow a free vote on the issue and I will support the Bill tonight. Those of my hon. Friends who do not share my view of the Bill and will not join us in the Lobby have made progress in the sense that they have admitted that gay people in relationships face problems. However, my hon. Friends argue that others face problems with their tax position and so on, as mentioned in the debate.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) quoted John Locke. It may well be that marriage is the building block of society, but that does not mean that we cannot have civil partnerships as a secondary underpinning of society, for those who expect to require them. The two are not mutually exclusive and that is the fulcrum of the differences in this debate.
	I have three points to make specifically and I shall then make some more general comments in conclusion. All three points draw on my previous experience of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which addressed many of the same issues. That Act has not been mentioned today, but if the Bill were not passed it would lead to an invidious situation for persons affected by that Act. I have a constituent who has been married for several years but has undergone gender reassignation. That person may now apply for a gender recognition certificate, but if they do so their marriage is automatically voided. However, they wish to continue the loving relationship that they have had for many years. It would be intolerable not to afford them the opportunity to take out the parallel of a civil partnership to recognise that new position. Indeed, they have lobbied me on that point and have kept in touch with me throughout the passage of the Bill.
	We touched on my second point when we discussed gender recognition, and it is also relevant to the Bill, so I hope that the Committee will consider it. It is important to be certain that the Bill is sufficiently alert to developing issues of private international law, especially relating to jurisdiction. As has been said in several quarters, a large number of European and other states have adopted legislation on civil partnerships that is similar to the Bill. Persons in civil partnerships will come to the UK and may establish businesses or work in this country, so it is extremely important that their rights are recognised and to some extent anticipated by our law and that we do not find ourselves in the European Court for non-compliance on the ground of discrimination. I advise Ministers to keep that point firmly in mind.
	A third issue that I hope will be probed in Committee is the need to iron out any remaining disparities between civil partnerships and marriage. The two are distinct, but it is perfectly proper that they be parallel and as near identical as possible in terms of what they convey. To my more sceptical friends, I say that I feel strongly that the Bill is about conveying rights and although there may be certain privileges, or consequences in terms of benefits, that flow from those rights, they are secondary to the main purpose. I think that Ministers are aware that if their objective is to secure those rights through a parallel process, they should make clear tonight and in Committee how those rights will be pursued. That consideration applies not only to the points that have been made in many places about occupational pensions, where I have sympathy, but is also true in respect of the financial implementation of those rights. It would be helpful if the Minister could tell the House something about the first convenient or available Finance Bill and the timetable to bring in the validation of those rights.
	Those three points have not always featured in debate. What has inevitably featured extensively is the tranche of amendments moved by my noble Friend Baroness O'Cathain, which cause real difficulty for the Bill, so I shall have no problem if the Government want to remove them in Committee. The difficulty is partly practical. For example, what would be the situation of three sibling sisters living together? Could they conclude a simultaneous civil partnership with each other, or if not, which of them would be excluded and on what grounds? The mind boggles.
	It is also important to remember that whereas rights can be extended to groups through the civil partnershipindeed, it is part of the essence of the case against civil partnership put by some who have briefed us that it affects only a small number of peopleby the same token, if the whole complex of family relationships and carers is included, the cost of any action taken would probably escalate by one or two orders of magnitude. We should be dealing not with a small amelioration of unfairness, or the ironing out that I described, but with an almost unsustainable financial consequence.
	It is of course entirely right, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition has indicated in correspondence and as we have said during the debate, that we should look at action to remedy or improve the position of carers and family members through a Finance Bill. That is the right place to argue the point, having regard to the costs and resources available and the precedents for it. Such provision should not be used to obstruct or get in the way of the thrust of the Bill's equality legislation for civil partnerships.
	I have some personal comments, which in a sense drive my support for the Bill. The nation, Parliament and society more generally have been on a rather long journeyas have Iand the Bill represents one of the final steps. Alongside the parallel evolution of discrimination and equality lawI have already indicated my sympathy with that broad approach and my continuing interest in itI would describe what has happened since the Wolfenden report in 1959 through the 1960s and on through the 40 years to today as the conversion of our legal approach from the old prescriptive and even literally penal ways that we practised to an approach based on respect for the individual and the choices that he or she wishes to make.
	Perhaps, taking the debate away from the Bill, the single most interesting and encouraging event in recent weeks has been the combined resistance of European Union countries to Turkey's proposed penalisation of adultery, which goes absolutely in the opposite direction and is not acceptable according to modern standards. Slowly but surely in western Europe and more widely in the western world, both among professed Christians and those of other faiths and no faith, we have come to cast off an approach based over the centuries on prescribing what people should do in their private lives and instead we have moved towards providing an acceptable institutional framework to enable individuals to pursue their lives by their own lights and to pursue their own relationships.
	There remain entrenchedwe have heard them todayovert and, perhaps more interesting, covert beliefs and habits that are hostile to gay relationships. Yet, and I say this as someone who has had 35 years in Christian marriage and has children and grandchildrenI celebrate thatI hope that I can recognise now the validity of the wish of my friends and the friends of my children who happen to be gay to enshrine their loving and faithful relationship in law. That is what the Bill is about. Simply, the time has come for all of us, but for my party as well, to learn to stop frustrating and even demonising individuals and instead to give them the space and encouragement to make their own life choices. That is the basis of my approach as a Conservative and of my support for this legislation tonight.

Anne McGuire: I congratulate the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) on an emotional winding-up statement and one that clearly identifies the journey that he has made in accepting the situation that we are discussing tonight. We have had a valuable debate. Seldom in this House over my short period in it have I heard such a thoughtful and thought-provoking debate. I say that in all sincerity to those people who perhaps do not accept the point of view that the Government are putting forward this evening.
	I make it clear from the outset that we are not here to denigrate or undermine anybody's deeply held religious beliefs. We are here to discuss a secular arrangement for a commitment that two people make. I hope that we will gain, if not universal support, then significant support for that in this House. I am particularly pleased with the overall support for the principle of the Bill and the recognition of the inherent value and humanity of committed same-sex relationships.
	Throughout today we have heard some outstanding speeches, and I want to comment on one or two of them. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr. Borrow) made a brave contribution to the debate today. It is very difficult to describe in the Chamber of the House of Commons in the full glow of publicity our own personal living circumstances, but he did so with great dignity. He also highlighted the fact that we are not talking about anonymous beings; we are talking about real people with whom we live and work.
	I also congratulate the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) on his personal support for the Bill and on relaying the Leader of the Opposition's support. We divide on political grounds in many debates in the House, but I was absolutely delighted to hear about both his own support and that of the Leader of the Opposition. I wish to deal with a couple of points that the hon. Gentleman made and perhaps to give him some reassurance. On the compression of time, there is not a major difficulty. We intend to get the Bill through Parliament; it is a flagship Bill, and we certainly hope that we will have maximum support for it. On the design of premises, we will have a further opportunity to discuss that issue in Committee. I hope that that gives some comfort to him.
	I wish to pick up on the comments made by the hon. Members for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) and for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley). Although I obviously do not wish to challenge their theological approachthat is not the purpose of my contributionI hope that hon. Members will agree that very strong equality and social justice imperatives drive the introduction of civil partnerships and that they apply equally to Northern Ireland as to the rest of the United Kingdom. It would be invidious to treat same-sex couples in Northern Ireland differently from same-sex couples in the rest of the United Kingdom even, with the greatest respect to the hon. Member for North Antrim, if there were only 14 of those couples in Northern Ireland.
	I also wish to highlight the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche). I congratulate her on her work as a Minister in highlighting the issue when she was in government. She made a telling contribution, and she also highlighted the fact that, in a mature society, we should be able to discuss such issues and to recognise that it is important that, regardless of our background or sexual orientation, we are entitled to equality of treatment and fairness.
	I am sorry in some respects to highlight the contribution made by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) because, frankly, it brought a rather sour note to the debate. I can only say that it appeared to be a speech of single transferable family values.
	We have heard about other countries throughout the debate. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) certainly identified, in a free-ranging and eloquent speech which brought seriousness to the debate, the range of countries that now adopt a position similar to the one that we speaking about this evening. One of his comments was particularly apposite: we cannot help those who cannot marry by somehow hurting those who can. That comment was very appropriate.
	The hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) also made a thoughtful speech, and I want to use it as a hook to congratulate him and the hon. Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley), my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford), the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Chris Smith), who collectively, in a cross-party way, sent letters to all hon. Members to say that they should support this important social legislation. I congratulate the hon. Member for Salisbury and other colleagues on that initiative.
	I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Jane Griffiths), who is in her place, recognised when she introduced her civil partnerships Bill three years ago that she was ploughing a furrow that would end up here this evening on 12 October. She made a valuable contribution to our debate.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) asked about religious ceremonies. I appreciate that he is an expert on such matters, although he has not been so for quite such a lengthy time as the hon. Member for Belfast, South. My hon. Friend asked whether ceremonies should be involved in civil partnerships. I think that it is fair to say that same-sex couples could have a ceremony in addition to the registration process if they wished, but that would not be a legal requirement. The Government are clear about the route down which we wish to go. The confirmation of the civil partnership will be the signing of the partnership schedule.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Ann McKechin) raised one or two issues relating to Scotland on which I hope that I can reassure her. She asked whether the Government will allow the Bill to grant the legal rights of succession that exist in common law for spouses. We will move amendments in Committee to provide legal rights of succession to civil partners, and we probably would have been able to do that in the House of Lords if we had not been so rudely interrupted. She asked whether the Executive plan to review the law on succession in the light of the Bill, but as she will appreciate that is purely a matter for the Scottish Executive.
	I highlight to my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) the fact that it was disappointing that the only contribution to the debate from a representative of the Scottish National party, the hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart), was to chunter on about whether the House should be legislating in such a way. It is important to appreciate that some things are better done collectively across the United Kingdom's legislatures. When there is such complexity surrounding reserved and devolved matters, it is vital, as my hon. Friend said, for the Scottish Parliament to have the maturity to realise the importance of giving its powers back to Westminster in this specific case. I reassure Scottish Membersthis might well interest other hon. Membersthat I met representatives of the Scottish Parliament Justice 1 Committee and explained to them the procedures and the way in which we would implement the Bill.
	The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) said at the outset that she thought the Bill was wrong, so I doubt whether anything that any hon. Member could say would change her mind. With the greatest humility, however, I must tell her that she is not the only person in the House who wishes to defend the institution of marriage. Many of us want to defend that institution, and after 32 years of marriage, rather like the hon. Member for Salisbury, I think that I could defend the institution in most instances. The right hon. Lady should not assume that people who oppose the Bill are the only ones who are willing to defend the institution of marriage.
	I shall deal with several general issues before I conclude my speech. As we have heard from examples cited today, the amendments made in the other place frankly left us in a faintly surreal situation. Although I would not impugn the reputation of all those who supported the amendments, the Bill was hijacked for reasons that are generally recognised to be outwith its scope. Many examples have been cited this evening about situations involving divorce or dissolving a civil partnership with a parent. Rather like the hon. Member for Daventry, I would have had grave difficulties with the situation in my family. I have three sisters and do not know whether we could agree about which would enter a civil partnership. When my parents were alive, I doubt that they would have been able to choose between the four of us regarding a civil partnershipmy father would have had to divorce my mother first in any case.
	We have clearly highlighted the fact that same-sex couples are invisible in legal terms. That is a good phrase, which has permeated the debate. It describes the situation exactly. We all know gay people who are living together in relationships, but in legal terms they do not exist. The Bill goes an enormous way to deal with that invisibility. With the greatest of respect to the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald, just because we want to give legal rights to people in that position, that does not mean that we are undermining the institution of marriage. We cannot defend the institution by perpetrating disadvantage and unfairness.
	Pensions have been of great interest and were raised by various hon. Members on both sides of the House. My right hon. Friend the Minister mentioned survivor pensions in public service schemes. There has been a significant discussion on that throughout the lead-up to the Bill. I am pleased to report that the Government will follow the approach that we have taken in the tax system. As for tax purposes, for survivor pensions in public service schemes, registered same-sex couples will be treated in the same way as married couples. The change will be achieved by means of regulations, which will be introduced following Royal Assent. There is no need to amend the Bill.
	The regulations will provide equality, as they will allow registered same-sex partners to accrue survivor pensions in public service schemes from 1988. That replicates the position for child and working tax credits, child benefit and guardian's allowance, which will be amended so that the rights and responsibilities of opposite-sex couples are replicated for same-sex couples. We have made it clear that we will use the first available Finance Bill to ensure that registered same-sex couples will be treated the same as married couples for tax purposes.

Angela Eagle: I thank my hon. Friend for the progress made since the debate started. She makes a welcome announcement and many people will be happy about it.

Anne McGuire: I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. There has been a great deal of activity and campaigning on the issue for genuine reasons, which is why the Government responded as they did. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland was cynical about that, but hoped that at the end of the day we would reconsider our position. I do not think that even he anticipated it would be at the end of this day.
	We are looking forward to debating some of the issues further in Committee. I am sorry that I have not been able to address everything raised. At the start of the debate, my right hon. Friend the Minister referred to some of the personal stories of same-sex couples. We heard similar stories throughout the day. The people who will be affected by the Bill are not anonymous. They are ordinary people, going about their everyday lives. They are our friends, members of our families, neighbours and people with whom we pray in church or meet in a supermarket. They are from all airts and pairts of the United Kingdom. Some have shared their lives for decades, awaiting the opportunity to gain recognition for their relationship. In all sincerity, I hope that the House knows that it is now time to offer them dignity, justice and the right to be treated fairly. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:
	The House divided: Ayes 426, Noes 49.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Bill read a Second time.

CIVIL PARTNERSHIP BILL [LORDS] (PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Orders [28 June 2001 and 6 November 2003],
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Civil Partnership Bill [Lords]:
	Committal
	1. The Bill shall be committed to a Standing Committee.
	Proceedings in Standing Committee
	2. Proceedings in the Standing Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on 21st October 2004.
	3. The Standing Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
	Consideration and Third Reading
	4. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
	5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
	Programming Committee
	6. Sessional Order B (programming committees) made on 28th June 2001 shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.
	Programming of proceedings
	7. Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.[Jim Fitzpatrick.]
	The House divided: Ayes 337, Noes 105.

Question accordingly agreed to.

CIVIL PARTNERSHIP BILL [LORDS] [MONEY]

Queen's recommendation having been signified
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a) (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with Bills),
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Civil Partnership Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise
	(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of
	(a) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by a person holding office under Her Majesty or by a government department, and
	(b) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided, and
	(2) the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of that Fund.[Jim Fitzpatrick.]
	Question agreed to.

MENTAL CAPACITY BILL (PROGRAMME) (NO. 2)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Orders [28 June 2001 and 6 November 2003],
	That the programme Order of 11th October 2004 in relation to the Mental Capacity Bill be amended by the substitution in paragraph 2 (time for conclusion of proceedings in Standing Committee) for the words '28th October' of the words '4th November'.[Jim Fitzpatrick.]
	Question agreed to.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Legal Services

That the draft Legal Services Complaints Commissioner (Maximum Penalty) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 8th July, be approved.[Jim Fitzpatrick.]
	Question agreed to.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS

European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993

Ordered,
	That, for the purposes of their approval under section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, the Government's assessment as set out in the Budget 2004 shall be treated as if it were an instrument subject to the provisions of Standing Order No. 118 (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation).[Jim Fitzpatrick.]

PETITION
	  
	Driving Offences

Tim Loughton: I seek the leave of the House to present a petition brought to Westminster today by my constituents, Ray and Jane McCabe, and signed by more than 23,000 people in my constituency and beyond in West Sussex, on the first anniversary of the death of their daughter, 21-year-old Natalie McCabe, who was killed in a tragic traffic accident exactly a year ago, together with a second passenger, Vicky Browne. A third young girl was maimed for life. The petition marks the first anniversary of their death at the hands of a driver who had no licence to drive, was not taxed or insured, was exceeding the speed limit excessively, and was well over the drink-drive limit.
	The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons pass legislation to increase penalties for driving offences; to introduce a system requiring the display of a valid driving licence and insurance documents on the windscreen of each vehicle; and to create a separate category of offenceto carry a similar penalty to that incurred by causing death by dangerous drivingfor crimes committed by drivers without a licence who maim or kill.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

ECTOPIC PREGNANCY

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Jim Fitzpatrick.]

Jane Griffiths: I am pleased to have the opportunity to initiate this important debate in the House tonight.
	To commence, I declare an interest as an unpaid trustee of the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust and as someone who suffered an ectopic pregnancy 12 years ago.
	Unlike eating and shelter, which are elemental requirements for the survival of an individual, reproduction is a primal requirement for the continuation of our species. If we as a species do not reproduce, we do not continue. It is also a powerfully personal issue. When things go well, it is the highlight of a life. When things do not go well, however, there is a great impact on a life. Within reason, we as a society should do what we can to maximise the number of times that things go right, and to minimise the number of times that they go wrong.
	Ectopic pregnancy is one of the things that can go wrong. It occurs when the fertilised egg becomes caught either in the fallopian tubes or outside the reproductive system altogether. As it continues to divide and grow, it then bursts in the place where it is, leading to internal bleeding. If not caught, that internal bleeding can lead to death.
	Around 10,000 women a year suffer an ectopic pregnancy. Around 10 die each year, and it is on the increase. Its impact is not just on the women who die and their families, but on those who survive when the ectopic pregnancy is not caught in time, who can suffer an emotional and traumatic time. They lose not only a potential child, but almost lose their life. The impact on the person of such an event is massive. There is a huge impact on their family, some of whom never get over it. There is a huge impact on the national health service, too, which need not happen.
	Who is at risk of an ectopic pregnancy? Any sexually active woman of child- bearing age is at risk. An ectopic pregnancy is more likely if one has had pelvic inflammatory disease, endometriosis, any previous abdominal surgery, which does not have to be gynaecological surgery but could be having one's appendix out at a young age, if one has had a coil fitted, if one is on the progesterone-only contraceptive pill the mini-pillwhich is a little controversial in medical circles, or if one has chlamydia. The official view is that around half of all ectopic pregnancies are caused by chlamydia, although there are arguments in the medical profession about that. It is significant, however.
	Looking back at the categories of women whom I mentioned, a huge proportion of the female population at any given time may have suffered from such conditions or may have used methods of contraception that might put them at greater risk.
	What is worrying is that chlamydia is on the increase. In February 2002, I was able to introduce a debate in the House on sexually transmitted infections, which are often referred to nowadays as sexually shared infectionsafter all, it takes two to tangoas a result of the dramatic rise in the number of such infections. It is a matter of concern that the level of infections is still increasing.
	At the time of the debate, I was promised that there was a Government commitment to extend the national chlamydia screening programme. The screening had initially been piloted in just two placesPortsmouth and the Wirral. It was extended to a further 10 sites in 2002 at a cost of about 1.5 million a year. Two years ago, the Department of Health estimated a cost to the nation of 50 million a year as a result of pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility as a result of chlamydia. Those costs, I suggest, are likely to increase, particularly as women with infertility problems are now to be offered a cycle of in vitro fertilisation treatment on the national health service. If conditions such as chlamydia continue to increase, infertility will also increase.
	As I have suggested, some think that these figures are an underestimate. Compared with this country, there has been a massive campaign in Sweden in the past 15 years to educate and screen the population. Chlamydia in Sweden is now rarethe rate has declined from 15 per cent. to some 3 per cent.and ectopic pregnancies have reduced at all ages, most markedly in women under 30.
	Almost two and a half years ago, I called for a national screening programme for chlamydia, but it has not happened. Since then, the rate of infection has increased, and the number of women suffering ectopic pregnancies has increased. That is not to say that nothing at all has happened. Diagnosis has improved and the death rate is not increasing, although the number of ectopic pregnancies is.
	I was pleased to read in the September issue of Men's Health Forum magazine about work carried out by the Men's Health Forum in partnership with Telford and Wrekin primary care trust and six local employers. Testing kits were made available in men's workplace lavatories, which could then be sent to Princess Royal hospital in Telford. The men were notified of the results by phone, post or e-mail, and if they tested positive, they could pick up antibiotics from a pharmacy without a prescription. I was also pleased to note that the scheme has been extended to include another local factory, a military base, a local college and some youth centres.
	The importance of this work is shown in a study of young soldiers in Edinburgh undertaken last year. Some 10 per cent. of the men had chlamydia, and some 88 per cent. of those with the infection had no symptoms and no reason, therefore, to seek medical attention. A leading consultant in sexual health says that one would expect to find the same proportion of hidden infection in any group of young men tested, or, indeed, in any group of men who had recently changed sexual partners. That gives us some idea of how widespread the infection is, and how urgently we need the screening campaign.
	If my hon. Friend the Minister is unable to announce tonight the nationwide roll-out of the national screening programme, I hope that he will at least be able to indicate further progress towards it. I urge him to encourage the Department of Health to expedite the programme if at all possible.
	The Minister may not be aware that some of the sexual health services that were keen to implement the chlamydia screening programme have been prevented from applying for money by their primary care trusts. That is because the Department of Health provides the first year's pump-priming money and covers costs for years 2 and 3, but then requires the PCT to pick up the full cost. The sexual health clinic in Bristol, which is widely acknowledged as one of the leading centres for chlamydia research in Britain, submitted a bid for the most recent tranche of funds in 2003, only to have it withdrawn by its PCT on the ground that the PCT could not afford to pick up the cost in 200607. That decision surely beggars belief, given that Bristol's sexual health service problems were highlighted by my colleagues on the Health Select Committee in last year's report to the House. Does the Minister have any suggestions as to how PCTs can be encouraged to support, and given incentives to support, local health services in accessing the screening campaign, instead of obstructing them?
	Whatever the cause of ectopic pregnancies, there is a more important change in the way in which services are delivered that could reduce the damage caused by them. As I said, ectopic pregnancy is a life-threatening condition that is on the increase. It has an impact on future fertility, and the emotional and physical trauma experienced is significant. But it is not only screening for chlamydia that can have a massive impact in terms of reducing the number of ectopic pregnancies, and we do not always have to look overseas for best practice. Some hospitals in the UK have established early pregnancy units. Any woman who might be pregnant is scanned to make sure that she does not have an ectopic pregnancy, and the provision of good ultrasound services and blood tests increases the accuracy of diagnosis. If early diagnosis can be achieved and the appropriate facilities provided, less invasive surgery or no surgery at all can be used to manage the condition. That will ultimately reduce the cost to the health service, the unnecessary suffering and the trauma to the woman, and will increase the chance of her future fertility. Medical advisers to the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust are already operating in that way. They have already made the changes necessary to reduce ectopic pregnancy.
	What is being asked for is not so much money as training for accident and emergency staff and for obstetrics and gynaecology staff. It is about the way services are organised and about making A and E staff aware of ectopic pregnancy. It is about midwives and nurses being able to refer women who possibly exhibit ectopic pregnancy symptoms to early pregnancy units for an early scan. In many areas, though, that is not possible and it has to be done via a GP. We must accept that midwives are the lead professionals for healthy women and are ideally placed to make referrals. Woman who are perhaps pregnant or at the very least those who exhibit early pregnancy problems should have easy unrestricted access to early pregnancy units across the UK. That will result in a reduced number of hospital admissions.
	Where GPs are involved, it is important that they are aware of problems in early pregnancies and have the necessary equipment to deal with them. For example, one of the medical advisers to the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust lectures to GPs across the country on the diagnosis of pelvic pain in women. Two years ago, at a course in Oxford, he found that half of the GPs worked in practices that refused to stock pregnancy testing kits on the grounds that they were too expensive and they were not being reimbursed for the cost. It costs approximately 1 for each test. The medical adviser was astonished to find that those GPs simply referred to hospital all women with pelvic pain that was viewed as severe enough by the doctor.
	Those are precisely the circumstances under which women with ectopic pregnancies and mild pain could be missedand could die. More recently, that adviser found fewer GPs with that attitude, but they still number around 5 to 10 per cent. of the total. Is it possible to ensure that primary care trusts insist that all general practices have pregnancy testing kits, and that GPs have adequate training in the diagnosis of pelvic pain in women to ensure that ectopic pregnancies will not be missed?
	I have talked about the importance of chlamydia, screening programmes and the organisational changes that I believe are necessary. One thing that I ask is that the Department of Health meets the senior medical staff already running best practice to learn about what can be done to reduce the numbers of ectopic pregnancies, so that discussions can be held on the theme.
	Having said at the start of my speech that I was involved in establishing the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, I make no apology for ending my speech by talking a little about its work. The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust is the only organisation in the UK that focuses on this relatively common condition that affects around one in 80 pregnancies. Over the last five years, the trust has provided information and support to tens of thousands of women in the UK through a dedicated helpline and website, which receives 50,000 visits per month yet receives no formal funding.
	It is very welcome that the Department of Health funded the initial start-up costs and sponsored the information leaflet on chlamydia and the link with ectopic pregnancy, though both those grants have now ceased and much of what we achieve is through the trust's fundraising activities and the good will of volunteers and supporters.
	This debate is of particular importance to me. Twelve years ago I had an ectopic pregnancy, and had it not been for my brilliant GP, Dr. Asghar, in diagnosing it, I would not be here now. I had thought that I might be pregnant, but I waited to do a test until after celebrating my birthday over the weekend. On the Monday, I did a test and found that I was pregnant. On the Tuesday, I went to the doctor who said that he would arrange a scan for me as early as possible. He mentioned the possibility of an ectopic pregnancy, which meant nothing to me at the time.
	At the weekend I began to feel very ill. Eventually, my then 10-year-old son called out my doctor and my son accompanied me to the hospital, hearing it said that I could die if not operated on very quickly. Confirming the foresight of my doctor, it was discovered that I had an ectopic pregnancy and I had a major operation. A nurse told me that I would have been dead if I had not had the operation within two or three hours. I was off work for several weeks, and received counselling for several months. I recovered fully, but what happened is still with me, as it is with every woman who goes through that. I do not want anyone else to go through what I went through, or anyone else's family to go through what mine went through.
	It is very important that we do all that we can to ensure that no one else goes through the experience that I have described and to arrive at a position when no ectopic pregnancies occur, or almost none. That is achievable. With not a lot of money, but a lot of will, my hon. Friend the Minister can make a major difference to the lives of many women and families. I look forward to his reply.

Stephen Ladyman: I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Jane Griffiths) on securing today's debate on an important and harrowing subject. I very much appreciate the valuable work that she has undertaken, both as co-founder and now as chairperson of the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust. I also very much appreciate the work carried out by the trust itself in raising awareness of ectopic pregnancies among women of child-bearing age, the medical profession and the general public. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend for sharing her personal experience with the House.
	Approximately one in 100 pregnancies is ectopic, sometimes known as tubal. As has been noted, this is a dangerous and potentially life-threatening complication, for which early diagnosis and treatment are essential. I am sure that all hon. Members have the greatest sympathy for all the women who experience this devastating condition and have to cope with the consequences. They have to deal not only with a threat to their own life, but also with the loss of a baby.
	Diagnosing an ectopic pregnancy presents particular challenges, as its symptoms present very early in pregnancy, often before the woman affected realises that she is pregnant and usually before she has sought any antenatal care. So, at this point, I should say two things clearly. First, even one avoidable death from an ectopic or tubal pregnancy is one too many, but secondlyand thankfullya woman is now very unlikely to die from an ectopic or tubal pregnancy.
	Successive reports of the Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths in the United Kingdom have highlighted delays in the diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy, sometimes with fatal results. So it is important that the possibility of ectopic pregnancy is considered for any women of child-bearing age presenting with abdominal pain, and that a pregnancy testand, if possible, an ultrasound scanis undertaken as a matter of urgency. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East was fortunate in having a doctor who understood that.
	The most recent CEMD report covered the three-year period from 1997 to 1999, and identified 13 deaths from ectopic pregnancy in the United Kingdom. It found that a majority of the women who died from ruptured tubal pregnancies and who were known to have sought medical help before death had symptoms suggestive of gastrointestinal or urinary tract disease. The report identified a clear need to highlight the atypical clinical presentation of women with tubal pregnancies to undergraduate medical and nursing students, and to postgraduate trainees in relevant specialties. Those included primary care, emergency medicine, general surgery and obstetrics and gynaecology.
	Without the CEMD reports for the UK, which are funded by the Department of Health, it would have been impossible for us to understand why women are still dying as a result of ectopic pregnancies, or from other causes. In February 2001, the chief medical officer reminded all doctors in England of the CEMD's detailed advice. Following the CEMD report, we asked the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to produce guidelines on the best way to manage a woman diagnosed with ectopic pregnancy. These were first produced in 1997 and have recently been updated. They have been distributed to all members and fellows of the college and are freely available on the college website.
	It is encouraging that many hospitals have established early pregnancy units to allow for rapid assessment. However, I recognise that that is not the case everywhere. The maternity standard of the national service framework for children, young people and maternity services, which was published on 15 September, highlights the clear need to enable equitable access to rapid and skilled care for women currently unable to access those services. The maternity standard asks primary care trusts and maternity care providers to ensure that every woman who is experiencing problems in early pregnancy has access to an early pregnancy unit; that every pregnant woman whose unborn baby is found to have a possible problem has access to high-quality, appropriate services in an environment sensitive to her, and her partner's, needs; that as a minimum, early pregnancy units have access to high-quality ultrasound equipment and suitable expertise, other methods of assessment and therapeutic expertise, and provide a suitable environment for worried or distressed mothers and their partners; and that diagnostic guidelines are circulated to all health professionals likely to be consulted by a woman who may have an ectopic pregnancy. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that, with the help of the national service framework, we are making progress in the direction that she set out.
	In discussing our efforts to tackle ectopic pregnancy, it is also important to say something about what we are doing to reduce the numbers of people infected with Chlamydia, which my hon. Friend also highlighted in her comments. Chlamydia is the most common sexually transmitted infection in this country. It often causes no symptoms, but if left untreated can lead to pelvic inflammatory diseasethe single most preventable cause of infertilityand ectopic pregnancy.
	As part of the implementation of the Government's national strategy for sexual health and HIV, the Department of Health is rolling out a chlamydia screening programme across the country. England is the first European country to have such a nationally organised programme and I am pleased to report that, after just two years, it already covers more than a quarter of PCTs in England. We forecast that full coverage will be achieved by 200809. I appreciate that my hon. Friend and many other people would like to see the programme available across the whole country immediately, but all screening programmes require time and commitment to implement successfully. Advice from the National Screening Committee is that it has taken at least five years to implement similar programmes successfully, and that our phased approach to rolling out the programme is the right one.
	We have also invested funding to enable laboratories to switch to the more reliable and non-invasive type of chlamydia test. Last year, the chief medical officer publicly announced, in response to the Health Committee's report on sexual health, that 8 million would be allocated for 200405 to enable the improved test to be available in at least one laboratory in each strategic health authority. That money has now been allocated to those areas where it is needed.
	Recently published data from the Health Protection Agency show a 9 per cent. increase in chlamydia between 2002 and 2003. It is encouraging to note, however, that the rate of increase for chlamydia, as with a number of other sexually transmitted infections, has slowed. I was interested to hear about the Telford programme, whichas my hon. Friend describes itsounds very promising. However, there is no room for complacency and we agree with the Health Protection Agency that the numbers of sexually transmitted infections being diagnosed in sexual health clinics is still a cause for concern. We shall continue to tackle that in several ways. Those include investment in clinics to improve capacity and raising awareness of the risks of chlamydia and other infections through national campaigns, such as The Sex Lottery and the teenage pregnancy campaign.
	Voluntary organisations, such as the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, also have an important role to play. I am pleased that the Department of Health has, in the past, been able to support the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust with grant aid towards its core costs and its chlamydia and ectopic pregnancy project. I hear what my hon. Friend says about continued funding. The mechanism by which we fund voluntary organisations is the so-called section 64 grant. Of course if the trust were to put in a bid for further section 64 funding, it would be considered, although my hon. Friend will understand that I am not in a position to make any promises tonight.
	I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that the Government recognise the need to ensure that facilities are available to enable women suffering from an ectopic pregnancy to be accurately diagnosed and treated, and that the maternity standard of the children's national service framework, in particular, will bring real benefits to all pregnant women. It gives us a real opportunity to drive up the quality of care offered to pregnant women, including those who have an ectopic pregnancy. I shall ensure that my hon. Friend's comments are carefully considered by all the officials involved in planning those services. I assure her that we shall reflect deeply on what she has told us about a very important subject on which further action is required.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at five minutes to Eight o'clock.